


Sick Days

by Setcheti



Series: Sick Days [1]
Category: Fantastic Four (Movieverse), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Medical Investigation (TV), The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-05
Updated: 2013-02-05
Packaged: 2017-11-28 06:38:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 25,227
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/671428
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Setcheti/pseuds/Setcheti
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The CDC said it  might be a new variant of the flu, but they weren't really sure...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sick Days

**Author's Note:**

> I've been saying I'm working on this story and "almost done except for the ending" for months now. But it wasn’t until about a week ago that I figured out why I couldn’t finish the ending: It was because I'd already gone past the ending and everything after that point was actually part of a second story. So yeah, there will eventually be a sort of follow-up to this one, because I already wrote about a third of it.

Tony had gone down first – in fact, he had brought the bug home from a board meeting. Since he had been a bit run-down at the time from working on a new project and healing from injuries he’d gotten during the Avengers’ last battle, nobody was really surprised that he wasn’t able to fight off the virus and had subsequently gotten sick.

Clint caught it next, presumably from the virus being airborne and him having been in Tony’s workshop that same day. Phil caught it from Clint and so did Natasha, and then Bruce caught it from no one in particular. Tony told Pepper not to come back to the tower so she wouldn’t get sick, and then when Tony got sick enough to whine and be pitiful because his girlfriend wasn’t there, Steve told Pepper not to come back in no uncertain terms. Because that was about the same time Thor started coming down with it, and any virus that could infect an alien thunder god was definitely worth quarantining the residential section of the tower for.

Steve, of course, did not get sick, which left him playing nursemaid to a tower full of sick superheroes and one sick SHIELD agent. He didn’t seem to mind, and he turned out to be surprisingly good at mother-henning people who really didn’t deal all that well with being under the weather and therefore out of commission. Steve had Jarvis lock Tony’s lab, Phil’s office, both workout rooms, and the shooting range until he or Pepper said they could be unlocked. He hid all the coffee and arranged for healthy groceries to be delivered, gently bullied people who didn’t want to eat into downing liquids and soft foods, and went from person to person making sure they were comfortable and medicated and as un-bored as he could arrange for them to be. He even cuddled and stroked hair and hummed gentle songs and got people who were too miserable to sleep, to sleep.

Outside the tower, the virus was happily plowing through New York City. The CDC said it might be a new variant of the flu but they weren’t really sure, and Steve demanded confirmation three times from a hoarse, sniffling Fury that there was no evidence the virus was anything but natural – after all, it had taken down Thor. Fury, whose entire staff was also sick, had assured him that the CDC had assured _him_ that the virus was perfectly natural and sarcastically congratulated him on being unable to get sick with the rest of them.

Steve conveniently forgot to tell his nominal boss that he’d actually felt himself starting to get the virus multiple times already, but that his serum-enhanced immune system had shot it down each time before he could start showing symptoms like everyone else. He did, however, agree non-sarcastically that he was lucky, because he knew he was. Nobody knew better than Steve how miserable it was to be sick and miserable, or how much better you felt when someone who cared took care of you. He had his mother to thank for that last part, and he mentally thanked her a dozen times a day for setting such a good example for him to follow. His mom had been the all-around best.

A week went by, very quickly for Steve, very slowly for his teammates. They were getting better, but the symptoms were lingering and everybody but Steve was cranky. Steve was honestly starting to feel a little cranky himself – it wasn’t like he’d been getting much sleep – but he reined it in and kept following his mother’s example. She’d have been disappointed in him if he’d snapped at his friends for being whiny and demanding when they were under the weather. After all, she had never snapped at him.

Everything was going as smoothly as could be expected until the phone rang and Fury was coughing out that someone was attacking the city and it looked like Loki and the Avengers needed to get out there and stop him. And then he hung up, leaving a horrified supersoldier standing by himself in the middle of the kitchen just staring at the buzzing receiver in his hand. It took a few seconds for his tactical mind to reassert control, and then he disconnected and dialed the Baxter Building. The Fantastic Four could help…

…Or they could have if they hadn’t had the virus too, which they all did except for Ben. Steve thought fast and asked Ben to meet him one street over from where Loki and whatever he had with him were waiting, and then he ran to suit up and then, hating himself more than a little, ran to Bruce’s room and woke the scientist up. “Bruce, I need you to come with me,” he said in a low but urgent voice that had the other man blinking at him in fuzzy confusion. “I know, I know – and I’m sorry, really I am. But I don’t think Ben and I can do this without you, buddy.” He helped Bruce slide his feet into a pair of slippers, wrapped a robe around him, and then half-carried him out to the elevator, down to the garage, and into a car he hoped Tony wouldn’t miss too much if anything happened to it because, well, the Hulk, the Thing, and Loki – enough said.

Ben Grim, also known as the Thing, was waiting for them in the agreed-upon place, and his rocky eyebrows went all the way up when he saw Bruce. “Steve, what the hell…he’s sick!”

“The Hulk isn’t, though,” Steve told him, and winced at the look Ben gave him. “Just…just trust me, Ben. I wouldn’t have brought him if I could have thought of anything else.” He started herding a shuffling, sniffling Bruce towards the noise of Loki doing whatever he was doing around the corner, motioning Ben to fall into step with them. “You watch my back while I set things in motion, and then you and I will be the cleanup crew while Hulk takes care of the main problem.” He flashed a strained smile. “Loki’s scared to death of him, you know.”

“That’s an awful simple plan,” Ben complained, but he fell into step and mentally crossed his fingers. “You think he can change?”

“I’ve got that covered.” And then they were around the corner and Loki was less than a city block away with a small cadre of big armed alien things in formation around him. He was announcing his intentions to take over and expressing some false sympathy for the city that their ‘so-called heroes’ were all too sick to do their jobs. Steve turned Bruce around so he could look him in the eye. “Bruce,” he said, “You know how awful you feel right now, and how all you really want to do is go back to bed and have me bring you some tea with lots of honey?” Bruce nodded, frowning. Steve nodded back and then turned him back around so he could see Loki, sliding the robe off his shoulders and tossing it aside. “He’s why you can’t do that. He came down here while you were sick _on purpose_ , and he thinks it’s funny.”

Bruce growled and took a step forward, and then he took another step and turned into the Hulk. The Hulk roared in rage and bounded towards Loki, who – to Ben’s surprise and everlasting delight – screamed like a little girl. And then Ben and Steve were running to intercept the alien soldiers Loki had brought with him and dodging alien soldier bodies as the Hulk tossed the ones that got in his way.

It was still a hard fight for Steve and Ben, and with only the two of them it seemed to go on for a long time before the last alien soldier went down. Finally, though, they were panting in the middle of the body-littered street and the Hulk was clenching Loki in one huge green fist and shaking him like a rag doll. Ben wasn’t entirely sure, but he thought Loki might actually be crying. “So what now, fearless leader?” he asked Steve, who was looking a lot the worse for wear. “What are we gonna do with all these guys? SHIELD ain’t out here to help us and neither is the bad guy’s big brother, and I don’t think the NYPD is up for this.”

“I..hadn’t thought that far ahead,” Steve admitted. He was holding ribs that were probably broken, but he forced himself to straighten up. They needed to contain Loki, needed to contain the downed aliens…and they were going to have to do it without SHIELD and without Thor. He frowned at the sky as an idea hit him. “Odin?” he called out, aware that Ben was looking at him like he’d lost his mind and wondering if Ben might be right. “ODIN!” he called again, louder. “If you want Loki, we could use a portal right about now!”

For a few long seconds nothing happened, and Steve was trying to think of another plan when the sky started to cloud over and the wind started to blow. He braced himself against the wind and moved closer to the Hulk, aware of Ben moving with him. The clouds swirled, blue lightning crackled…and suddenly, wonderfully, a hole opened up in the center of them. Steve didn’t waste any time, forcing himself to run the rest of the way to the Hulk’s side. “Hulk, toss him through!” he yelled over the noise the wind was making. “Toss him through the hole!”

The Hulk scowled and shook Loki again, and then with a roar he drew back his massive arm and pitched the rogue Asgardian into the sky, where he flew through the hole with a barely audible wail. Steve patted the other huge green arm with a smile. “Good job, buddy, great job. Loki’ll think twice before he comes back here again.”

“Hmmph,” the Hulk snorted. “Puny god.” He raised a wild black eyebrow at Ben. “Thing smash too?”

“Did my share,” Ben confirmed, smacking Hulk on the arm in a comradely fashion and bracing himself for the return smack that would have sent anyone not made out of rock flying. “You feelin’ okay, big guy? The little guy was pretty sick.”

Hulk’s response to that was another snort. “I don’t think Bruce will be sick – or at least not as sick – when he changes back,” Steve said, a little breathlessly. “That’s the way it seems to work for him.” His eyes were still on the sky, though, and he was starting to look alarmed. “Shouldn’t that be closing now?”

Ben swore, and Hulk growled. The portal was still open, and as they watched it flashed blue and someone appeared in the street in front of them. She was an older woman, regal and beautiful, her barely silvering golden hair coiled around her head and her cream and gold robes swirling gracefully around her. Steve evaded Ben’s attempt to hold him back with a dodge that made him wince and walked towards the woman, stopping a respectful distance away. This wasn’t Thor’s father, obviously, so maybe it was… “Um…Frigga?” he asked.

“Yes, Captain.” The woman’s blue eyes were wise and kind, and she smiled at him. “I thought it was about time I came to see my son,” she said. “I cannot imagine he has taken well to being laid low by a Midgardian illness, I feel sorry for whoever has been tasked with caring for him.”

Steve smiled in spite of himself. “He hasn’t been too bad, ma’am,” he told her. “But I can take you to him, he’ll be glad to see you. Just give us a little bit to get something done about this mess and then we’ll go.”

Frigga nodded. “Of course,” she allowed graciously. She looked around at the street, frowning, then at Ben, the Hulk, and finally back to Steve, who did his best to stand a little straighter. Her frown deepened. “Where are your allies, your fellow warriors?”

“Everybody’s sick,” Ben told her, and Hulk rumbled disgruntled agreement. “Me and the green guy and Captain America here, we’re pretty much it right now.”

She positively scowled. “Oh no, that is _not_ acceptable.” She looked up at the slowly closing portal. “Odin, send someone to attend to this!” she ordered the swirling clouds. “It is the least we can do.”

There was a rumble of thunder from overhead, and then a few seconds later more blue flashes left a handful of armed and armored Asgardians in the street; the newcomers immediately marked out a circle on the ground and started piling alien soldiers into it. Steve fished out his communicator and called Fury. “The threat’s been taken care of, and our allies from Asgard have sent some help down to clean up the mess,” he reported. “Please get the word out that these people are helping us, tell everybody not to attack them.” He made a face at the demand that he come in for debriefing immediately. “I’ll write up a report when I get back to the tower, sir. I had to leave the rest of the team alone to come deal with this, I need to get back to them. And Thor’s mother is here, so I’m taking her to see her son.” More demands, and he sighed. “Director Fury…go drink some more fluids and get some sleep, okay? If you don’t take care of yourself, you’re just going to stay sick. And no more coffee, tell whoever’s there that you need tea with honey, that will help your throat.” Fury hung up on him, and he rolled his eyes. “Stubborn idiot.”

Ben’s mouth had dropped open. “Did you just try to mother-hen Nick Fury?” he asked, laughter erupting out of his rocky chest. “Did I really just hear you do that?”

Steve colored up a little and snorted, which made him wince and wrap his arm back around his ribs. “He’s at the cranky stage, I can tell,” he defended himself. “I’m sure everyone there is too scared of him to make him take care of himself.” A large green finger tapped him gently on the head, ruffling his hair. “Hey buddy,” he said, reaching up and patting the finger. “You about ready to go back home?”

Hulk tapped him again, an odd look on his face. “Good man,” he rumbled. “Good friend.” A surprisingly wicked smile quirked up one corner of his mouth. “Fury idiot.”

That caught Steve and Ben by surprise, and Steve laughed hard enough that he would have fallen over if Ben hadn’t steadied him. Hulk laughed too…and then he changed back and Bruce was dropping to the ground with a groan. Steve hurried to the other man’s side. “Ben, can you grab his robe?” he asked, and Ben obligingly pelted back down the street. Steve carefully knelt down beside Bruce and felt his forehead. “Still a little warm, but that could be from the change,” he murmured. “I hope it is, anyway. I sure don’t want you to get sicker because I couldn’t think of a better plan.”

He stayed where he was, partially because he wanted to be close if Bruce woke up, partially because kneeling had been a tactical error on his part and he didn’t think he could stand back up without some help. Ben was back quickly enough, and between the two of them they managed to get Bruce back into his robe and even tie it around his waist. Ben gave Steve a knowing look and then lifted him to his feet before bending down and picking Bruce up in his arms. “C’mon, let’s get you two back to the car. I’ve gotta get home before Reed tries to do science again.”

Steve snorted, softly enough not to hurt himself this time. “I locked Tony out of the labs.”

“Yeah, we’ve got an open floor plan, so I don’t have that luxury,” Ben told him. “Makes it easier to keep track of the three of ‘em, though – no matter where they go, I can still see them.”

“I’ve been running from room to room all week,” Steve admitted. “I tried moving them all out into the family room once, but they weren’t comfortable so I moved them all back.” Frigga was walking beside him, and he quirked a smile at her. “Thor really isn’t handling it any worse than any of the others, ma’am. What really worried me was that he was able to get the virus at all.”

She was observing him closely, although he didn’t realize it. “You did not become ill yourself?”

Steve shrugged. “I think I almost caught it about four times, but it didn’t get anywhere.” He suddenly looked concerned. “Wait, if Thor got it, that means _you_ could…”

She smiled again, shaking her head. “I do not expect to become ill, young one, but I thank you for your concern.” They had reached car, and she waved a regal hand. “This is your transport?”

“Well, it’s Tony’s transport, but I’m borrowing it for the current emergency,” Steve told her. He held open the passenger door for her and got her situated, then opened the back passenger door for Ben, who put Bruce inside. Steve leaned against the side of the car. “Appreciate the help, Ben. We couldn’t have done it without you.”

“No, probably not,” Ben agreed easily. He patted Steve very gently on the shoulder. “You take care, buddy, I’ll see you around. We’ll compare notes later on sick hero babysittin’ duty.”

“Sundaes are on me this time,” Steve agreed. Neither he nor Ben got anything from drinking alcohol, so they usually met up at their favorite ice cream place when they wanted to pal around. “See you later, Ben.” The Thing waved and then bounded off up the street, and Steve fumbled open the car door and lowered himself into the driver’s seat, strapping on the seatbelt less because of safety and more because it would help support his ribs on the not-so-smooth ride home. “We’re only a few minutes away from the tower, ma’am,” he told Frigga. “Unfortunately, there’s not a whole lot to see between here and there except for regular buildings. The fancier ones are mostly in the other direction.”

“It is all still very intriguing to me,” Frigga assured him. “I have not been to Midgard in a very long time, and I do not believe I have ever visited this area before. How long has it been settled?”

“By us, only about 200 years,” Steve said. “Not very long, I know. There are cities in Europe – across the ocean from us – that have been there for a thousand years or more. I saw cathedrals when I was over there that were older than our entire country. Some of them were really beautiful, too.”

They made small talk about the city all the way back to the tower, and once they had pulled in Steve eased himself partway into the back seat and started trying to wake Bruce up. “Bruce, come on buddy, I can’t carry you right now,” he pleaded quietly, shaking the other man’s shoulder. “Come on, please wake up for me. You can crash again once we get you up to your room, I promise.”

“Huh?” Bruce blinked, then blinked again. He frowned at Steve and pushed himself up on one elbow, looking around in confusion. “I…we’re still in the car. Or are we back in the car?”

“Back in the car.” Steve sighed. “I’m so sorry, Bruce. I hated to drag you out of the house when you were sick, but I couldn’t think of anything else to do. How are you feeling?”

“Much better, actually.” Bruce ran a hand through his dark hair. “Wait, you couldn’t…” He looked around the inside of the car, frowning when the only person he saw besides the very battered-looking Steve was a strangely-dressed older woman in the front seat. He tugged the robe around himself a little tighter. “Where’s everybody else?”

“It was just us and Ben,” Steve told him. “Everyone else was too sick to help, they were all asleep when Fury called us out. But Frigga called down some people to help with the cleanup after the battle, so at least we didn’t have to try to do that too.” He waved a hand at the woman. “Bruce, this is Frigga, Thor’s mother. She wanted to come check on him.”

Bruce blinked at her. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, ma’am.” He blinked again at Steve. “Just you and Ben and the Other Guy?”

“Hey, we handled it,” Steve assured him. “Problem’s all solved. Now let’s get inside before any of the others notice we were gone, okay? They were all asleep when we left, and I really don’t want to spend the rest of the afternoon explaining what we’ve been out doing to cranky sick people.”

“I don’t think I’m sick anymore.” Bruce shook his head slowly. “Fury…”

“He’s sick too. And cranky. He tried to call me in for a debriefing twice in one phone call, I told him I’d write a report later and to drink tea with honey for his throat. He hung up on me.”

Bruce chuckled. “Wish I could have heard that conversation.” He sat the rest of the way up and scooted out of the back seat, standing up. He grinned and shook his head when Steve reached out to make sure he kept his balance. “Really, Steve, I feel much better now.” Then his eyes narrowed, taking in the way his friend was standing. “Broken ribs?”

Steve waved it off with the hand that wasn’t supporting them. “I’ll be fine.”

“Uh huh.” Bruce took his free arm. “Come on, let’s get upstairs and I’ll take a look, and then we can check on the others.”

Steve did not quite chuckle. “Hopefully none of them woke up and realized we were gone.”

 

When the elevator let them out on the main floor of the tower’s residential levels, however, there in the family room were the other four Avengers and Phil Coulson, and none of them looked happy. The scowls he was getting almost made Steve take a step back; in fact, if Bruce hadn’t kept hold of his arm he probably would have. Bruce, however, was giving the rest of them a scowl of his own. “Stop,” he ordered. “I’m fine now, not even sick any more – the Other Guy is good for that.”

“Which is all fine and good, but I’ve still got a bone to pick with our fearless leader about his decision to do things the sneaky expedient way,” Tony snapped hoarsely. “Turning into Fury, Cap?” Bruce’s eyes turned green when the question made Steve flinch, and Tony held up his hands. “Hey, I’m just saying…”

“Bruce, it’s okay,” Steve insisted, patting his arm. “It’s okay, Bruce. They’re all still at the cranky stage, and I expected them to be mad once they found out I went without them – and that I took you with me.”

“Not making me any happier,” Bruce warned, but he took a deep breath and visibly reached for his control. His eyes turned brown again. “Tony,” he said in a reasonable approximation of his usual calm tones, “shut up and go back to bed, I mean it. After I’ve made sure none of Steve’s cuts need stitches and his broken ribs are going to heal up right, I’ll come check on you.”

“I will do that.” Frigga had glided out of the background, and she fixed Tony with a look that made him shrink back into the couch cushions a little bit. Then she turned her gaze to her openmouthed son and raised a perfect eyebrow. “Thor, I certainly hope you were not about to exhibit such bad behavior.”

“Mother?” Thor staggered up out of the chair he’d been sprawled in, approaching her cautiously at first and then sweeping her into an enthusiastic hug. “Mother! Why are you on Midgard?”

She patted his cheek and he let her go. “My son was ill, I wished to check on him. So while the portal was open, I came down to do just that.” The look again. “Thor, you did not answer me.”

He deflated a little. “We were angry he did not rouse us to help.”

“None of you were in a fit state to go out and fight,” Steve said quietly. “And Bruce may have been sick, but I knew the Hulk wasn’t. Not to mention,” he grimaced a little, not quite glancing at Frigga, “Loki is afraid of the Hulk.”

“It was _Loki_?!” Clint rasped from the couch. “Where…”

“Back on Asgard,” Steve reassured him quickly. “I asked Odin for help; he opened up a portal and Hulk tossed Loki through it.” He waved a hand. “And then Frigga came through to see Thor.”

Thor frowned. “You asked my father…how?”

Steve started to shrug, stopped himself again. “I knew he knew you were sick, Thor. I just yelled out his name, hoping he had Heimdall keeping an ear open for you.”

“He did,” Frigga confirmed. “Unfortunately Loki has learned to shield himself from us, so we did not know he was here until you called for Odin.” She frowned at him and gave him a little push. “Go, refresh yourself and change your garments, and allow your friend to see to you. I am more than capable of handling this ‘cranky stage’.”

If Steve hadn’t been feeling so lousy right at that moment, the looks on the faces of the other Avengers would have been really, really funny. “Yes ma’am,” he said. “If you need anything, just ask Jarvis. Jarvis,” he addressed nothing in particular. “This is Thor’s mother, Frigga. Please give her any assistance she needs.”

“Of course, Captain Rogers,” Jarvis replied politely, his disembodied voice making Frigga’s eyes widen. “Lady Frigga, welcome to Avengers Tower. Dr. Banner, the captain is becoming feverish again. I believe the virus is once again attempting to infect him.”

“Again? How many times has it tried?”

“This is the sixth attempt, although I believe the captain has only recognized four of them.”

“That isn’t right.” Bruce frowned, shaking his head. “I’m on it, Jarvis. Come on Steve, let’s get you cleaned up and checked out. It’s my turn to be the mother-hen.”

He led the tired, limping supersoldier out of the room, leaving four shamefaced heroes and one frowning agent behind. “Six times?” Tony asked, confused.

“The captain’s immune system repelled the virus each time before he began displaying visible symptoms,” Jarvis informed him.

“But it’s only been a little over a week, that’s not normal,” Phil spoke up. His normally smooth voice was rough. “Jarvis, what has the CDC said about it? What has SHIELD said?”

“Director Fury assured Captain Rogers that , according to the CDC, it is a naturally-occurring virus,” Jarvis told him. There was a pause that in a human would have been for dramatic effect. “The captain asked him on three separate occasions.”

Phil started to get up; a look from Frigga put him back in his seat. “No,” she said. “It will do you no good to inquire. I was present when Captain Rogers spoke with the one he called Fury. The man is ill and,” she smiled, “at the ‘cranky stage’. When the captain attempted to tell him to take care of himself, Fury ended their communication abruptly.”

“Wonderful.” Phil sank back into the chair, curling up. “Now I’m really glad I’m here and not there. I’m surprised Hill hasn’t tried to call me in.”

“You don’t know that she hasn’t, since there’s not a cell phone to be found on this floor,” Tony told him grumpily. He’d gone looking for the phones earlier, when they’d first realized Steve and Bruce were gone. “What about that, Jarvis?” Silence. “Jarvis!”

“Captain Rogers insisted that you were not to be bothered, sir, that you all needed your rest,” Jarvis finally told him. “Ms. Potts agreed, and she has handled all of your communications since you all became ill. The captain has made daily reports to her through me regarding the health of each Avenger and Agent Coulson.”

“I recall he told me my Jane had escaped this illness,” Thor said. “I believe I demanded that she be brought here on at least one occasion, but he insisted that no one who was not infected be allowed to visit, for fear of them becoming infected through proximity to us.”

“Which is standard procedure, even when it’s a known illness like the flu,” Phil told him. “I’m sure headquarters is under quarantine too. And Director Fury usually doesn’t get sick, so if he’s got it contagion is definitely an issue.”

“Half the city has it,” Clint put in. He was curled up in a corner of the L-shaped couch, red-eyed and miserable looking. “I saw the news a few times this week. They’re comparin’ it to a really bad flu outbreak.”

“Influenza wouldn’t have tried to infect Steve six times,” Phil disagreed. “I’m not an expert on the subject, but SHIELD runs into biological weapons sometimes so I do know something about it. Once his immune system had countered the virus the first time, that should have been the end of it.”

“Bruce will figure it out.” Tony was sulking – he didn’t have his phone, Jarvis wouldn’t mind him, and Thor’s mother was in charge. But still…“So Steve tried to pull his All-American mother-hen act on Fury, huh? Wish I could have been a fly on the wall when that was happening…”

 

Bruce showed back up in the family room about an hour later, without Steve. “I made him go to bed,” he answered the worried looks that came his way – in spite of their irritation with their leader earlier, none of them had been willing to go back to their rooms until they knew he was going to be all right. “He’s still fighting the virus off – Jarvis says we’re up to seven tries now – and after today’s battle on top of a week of nonstop mother-hen duty, he is absolutely wiped out.” He held up a box of tubes and needles. “I need blood samples, from all of you. I’m pretty sure the CDC is wrong about this virus being natural, but I’ll need to prove it before anything else can be done.”

Thor looked alarmed. “Mother…”

“She can’t leave now, Thor,” Bruce told him. “Until we know what it is and how to stop it, we can’t risk her taking it back to Asgard.”

“I would not leave anyway. And I took precautions against becoming infected with your Midgardian illness prior to coming here.” Frigga swept back into the room carrying a tray of glasses filled with something purplish-blue. She put the tray down on the coffee table and started handing them out. “Drink it, all of you, and then you must rest again.” She indicated the remaining glass. “This one is for you, Bruce, when you are finished obtaining your samples.”

“Thank you.” Bruce got to work, taking two samples from each person. When he was finished, he took the glass she handed to him and drained half of it. “Mmm, blueberry guava. Jarvis told you how to make this?”

“He assisted me in using the book Captain Rogers had left out in the kitchen; it is full of recipes for healthful drinks,” she explained. “The captain had them marked according to the preferences of each person, but Jarvis said this one should be well received by all.”

“It’s wonderful,” Bruce told her. “Do exactly as she says,” he warned everyone else in the room. “Drink, then sleep. My tests won’t be done for a few hours at least, you’re not going to miss anything.”

He left the room, taking the rest of his smoothie with him, and for a little while the only sound was quiet slurping interspersed with the occasional cough or sniffle. Frigga finally took Clint’s glass away from him when it almost fell out of his hand. “Bed,” she ordered gently.

“I’ll make sure he gets there,” Phil said when the archer didn’t do anything but blink at her. He pried himself out of his chair and then tugged on Clint until he got up. “Come on, you heard the lady, bedtime.”

“The couch is comfortable,” Clint whined.

“If your bed is not, you may come back,” Frigga told him. That made him smile, and he ambled off with Phil’s hand on his shoulder. Natasha got up and offered soft thanks in Russian before following them. Frigga turned to Tony. “Finish it and find your bed.”

“I was going to go down and help Bruce…”

“You will do no such thing.” She hadn’t raised her voice, but there was a thread of steel in it that widened his eyes. “You are ill, he is not. You will take your rest and regain your health, Man of Iron, whether it is to your liking or not.”

Thor gave the gaping Tony a sympathetic look. “My friend, trust me in this: Resistance is futile.”

Tony groaned. “You just quoted the Borg at me, I don’t believe it – no more Star Trek for you.” But he obediently drank down the rest of his smoothie and then got up. “Can’t I just check…” She raised an eyebrow, and he wilted. “Okay, okay, going to bed now. And Thor,” he called back over his shoulder as he trudged out, “your mom is _mean_.”

Thor laughed, which made him cough, and then he too stood up. “I will see that he goes to his room and nowhere else before I seek my own bed, Mother.”

“I will go with you.” She took his arm and walked with him to Tony’s room, where they saw that the Man of Iron had indeed gone there as ordered; he appeared to be readying himself to rest, so they left him alone. Once in her son’s room, however, Frigga insisted on tucking him in and then sitting beside him, a small smile flickering across her features. “It has been many, many years since I last tucked you into your bed, my son.” She stroked his hair. “I am pleased to have this time with you now, although the circumstances are not the best. And I am glad to finally make the acquaintance of these Midgardian heroes you fight beside.”

Thor smiled sleepily, closing his eyes. “They are fine warriors, and entertaining companions,” he said. “I am much desirous of having Sif meet Lady Natasha, the Black Widow. I feel they would enjoy each other’s company greatly.”

“Once you are well, and the threat of illness is no more, perhaps Sif can be persuaded to pay you a visit,” Frigga told him. “Although you must warn her if your captain already has a lady love, as I feel she might wish to spend more time in his company than that of your Lady Natasha.”

“The captain’s last love is long since lost to him, and he mourns her still,” Thor told her, and even ill and half asleep the thought seemed to bother him. “We must tell Sif…to go carefully with him.”

“I will tell her.” Frigga continued to sit and stroke her son’s golden hair until she was sure he would stay sleeping, and then she got up and examined his room. It was plain, by Asgardian standards, but was comparable to the room the tower’s owner had gone into so she made up her mind that this was an acceptable sleeping place for her son on Midgard. There were a few pictures of Thor’s Jane, only some of which she had already seen, and a hand-drawn picture of Thor and Jane together which pleased her a good deal as they both looked so happy in it. Her son’s Midgardian clothing was strange to her, plain like the room, but it looked well-made enough and there was a short coat of thin leather with a beautiful softness to it which definitely met with her approval. She looked back at Thor. Other than the illness he seemed to be healthy, and his banter – even his ‘crankiness’ – with his friends had told her he was content. It was good.

She went back to Tony’s room. The Man of Iron was already sleeping deeply, if restlessly, and the jewel of power embedded in the center of his chest shone with softly steady blue light through the thin shirt he was wearing. She frowned. He was well-muscled, but too thin. Perhaps she would see about placing a servant who cooked within the tower, someone who could cajole a busy warrior into taking in the necessary amount of nourishment. She pulled the thin blanket up to cover him better, careful not to wake him, and then went out again.

The archer Hawkeye, who her son called Clint within the tower, was sleeping restlessly as well, but he woke the moment she entered his room. She shook her head at him and moved to adjust his blankets. “I gave my word I would take your captain’s place while he rested,” she told him, checking his forehead and finding it cool to the touch. “Sleep, archer. My son has told me of your skill, I would see you well enough to display it for me before I return home.”

He just blinked at her. “You don’t look old enough to be Thor’s mom.”

Frigga laughed. “Skilled _and_ charming, you are a warrior after my own heart. Odin was much the same in his youth.” She kissed his forehead, which seemed to surprise him, then adjusted his blankets again and glided to the door. “Sleep, I will wake you if there is any news.”

“Thanks,” was his response, although she still felt his cautious eyes follow her out. She shook her head. Very like her husband indeed.

The Son of Coul was sitting cross-legged on the end of his bed when she found him, but he held up a hand when she started to scold. “I’m just…waiting for my stomach to settle,” he explained, flushing slightly with embarrassment. “I’ll lay down once I’m sure…I won’t have to get up again in a hurry.”

Frigga nodded her understanding. “Tell Jarvis to fetch me if you find yourself in need of assistance,” she told him. “It is difficult to sleep with the smell of sickness in the room.”

His color deepened. “I couldn’t…Lady Frigga, you’re a _queen_.”

She laughed. “I am here as the mother of my son,” she replied. “And Jarvis has informed me that this house has servants who clean when it is needed. But should you require it, I will see to it that you are made comfortable elsewhere until they have done what they must.”

He relaxed somewhat, and the smile he gifted her with was surprisingly sweet. “I’ll let Jarvis know if I need anything,” he promised.

“Rest well, then,” she replied, and left him to deal with his illness, reminding herself to put in the book of recipes that the Son of Coul should not have the drink of blueberry and guava when he was ill, as it did not agree with him.

Lady Natasha was waiting for Frigga in the hallway outside her room. “I had Jarvis ask Pepper if you could borrow some of her things while you were here,” she said, her voice hoarse in a way that let Frigga know her throat was hurting with each word. She held out a small stack of folded fabrics. “I knew my clothes would not fit you, but Pepper is closer to your size.”

Frigga took the folded garments with a smile. “That was very thoughtful, thank you. If you speak with the Lady Pepper before I meet her, please give her my thanks as well.”

“I will.” She fought back a cough. “Thank _you_ , for helping. We did not know Steve was sick, nobody thought he _could_ get sick.”

She sounded guilty, and Frigga shook her head. “He did not think he could get the sickness, so he did not know he was sick either. Now go, make yourself comfortable, and I will bring you something hot to soothe your throat so that you may sleep.”

Natasha’s hand rose to her throat. “I… you don’t need to, I can…”

“I will bring it,” Frigga told her, putting more authority behind the words this time. “I will check on your captain first, and then I will return to you.” The younger woman seemed unsure of how to respond to this, so Frigga pointed to her room and after a moment Natasha went in and closed the door.

The last of her charges was sound asleep when she checked on him, propped on pillows by the careful hand of the doctor in deference to his injuries. The flush on his cheeks and his tousled golden hair brought her memories of Thor when he had been a child, but a touch to his forehead made her exclaim in alarm. “Jarvis, have you informed Bruce…”

“I have,” the voice of the un-bodied mechanical servant responded immediately; he had explained himself to her as an “artificial intelligence” which did not have a body per se but which had control over most mechanical systems within the tower. “He is monitoring the captain’s condition from his lab, but I will let him know you are here.”

She thanked him, and a moment later Bruce’s voice addressed her in the same manner Jarvis had. “He’s hotter, I know,” he said. “He still doesn’t actually have it, but I think the virus is…it seems like it’s trying to mutate specifically to infect him, and when he got injured it sensed weakness in his system and stepped up the attack.”

“This is not normal behavior for this ‘virus’?”

He sighed. “This isn’t normal behavior for any virus I’ve ever heard of, which leads me to believe someone created it specifically to attack someone like Steve – or maybe just to attack Steve, I don’t know for sure yet. But I’m worried now that you might be seriously at risk, Lady Frigga.”

“I took certain precautions before I left home, Bruce,” she reassured him. “Trust me when I say that I cannot be infected by anything on Midgard while I am here, and neither can those who were sent to help clean up our younger son’s mess in your city.”

“All right,” was his answer. “But if you start to feel strange or sick, even just a little bit, let me know immediately.” He sighed again. “I can’t really leave the lab right now, but even if he’s still asleep Steve’s bound to be miserable – as long as his body is having to fight off the virus it looks like the injuries he has aren’t going to heal the way they usually do. Jarvis is monitoring him, but …well, if you would look in on him every half-hour or so, and do whatever you can to make him comfortable, I’d appreciate it.”

“I would be happy to help.” She stroked the mussed golden hair the same way she had her son’s earlier. “This one is a strong warrior, and a fine leader, but he is still so very young.”

That made Bruce chuckle again, this time a little sadly. “Yeah, we tend to forget sometimes that Steve’s actually the youngest member of the team. He’s only twenty-seven, but he usually acts much older than the rest of us.” A sigh. “As soon as I have something, I’ll come back up there to relieve you.”

“You will come up for dinner regardless,” Frigga informed him. “Or if you cannot come up, I will bring it to you where you are. I think you would much prefer remaining healthy, would you not?”

This time Bruce’s laugh was easier. “I’m not sure if that was a threat or not, but if it was it was the nicest threat I’ve ever been on the receiving end of. I’ll be up for dinner if at all possible, I promise.”

“Very well.” Frigga heard a little click which she assumed meant he was no longer speaking to her, and then she left the room to fix a hot drink for Natasha.

When she came back, Steve felt even hotter than he had before and was becoming restless, and she fetched some cloths and cool water to try to ease his discomfort. The cool water at first made him flinch away in his sleep, but finally he sighed and relaxed and his blue eyes flickered open. His first words, though, proved that those eyes were not seeing Frigga, but rather someone else. “Mom?”

She stroked his cheek with her fingers. “You are quite ill, Steve. Just rest, you will feel better soon.”

He nodded, but he looked so sad. “I’m sorry, Mom.”

That was puzzling. “Sorry for what, child?”

He actually sniffed, closing his eyes again. “I’m sorry…I’m so sick all the time. I wish you didn’t have to take care of me. I’m…I’m supposed to take care of you, now that…now that Dad is gone.”

Frigga’s heart broke. “It is not your fault that you are ill,” she told him gently. She moved the cloth on his forehead and kissed him, then wet the cloth again before putting it back in place. “And no mother minds caring for her child. That is your fever speaking such foolishness to me.”

He sniffed again. “Sorry.”

“There is nothing to be sorry for, Steve.”

He sighed into the pillows, shifting and wincing and then settling in again. “I love you, Mom. Someday…someday I’ll be like you. And Dad. I’ll take care of people too, just like both of you did.”

She couldn’t help the tears that welled up in her eyes. “You will, child, I know you will,” she assured him. “Your parents could not help but be proud of you.”

“Hope so,” he murmured, and then he was asleep again. Frigga composed herself with an effort. “Jarvis, please tell Bruce that Steve woke for a moment…and that he thought I was his mother.”

“I will tell him, Lady Frigga.”

 

Down in the lab, Bruce stared at the wall, fighting his frustration; the tests couldn’t be rushed, and they had to be watched. He didn’t like it, but it wasn’t like the rest of the team needed him right now. Frigga was watching the others and keeping an eye on Steve. Who had woken up for a minute and thought she was his mother. Jarvis had said Frigga was upset, and had played back the conversation for Bruce at his request. Bruce had been even more upset by it than Frigga.

For the moment, Steve had gone back to sleep. Everyone else was asleep. Frigga was in the kitchen discussing plans for their dinner with Jarvis. Bruce forced his attention back to his laptop and the news stories he’d been scanning that related to the virus. The CDC had classified it as a Category 1, about the same level as the seasonal flu. It had started in New York and spread from there. No deaths had been reported, which was slightly odd to Bruce’s mind because any viral epidemic would usually cause a few fatalities – people who were already weak or sick, older people, very young children. But so far there had been none, and the first cases of the virus had been reported nearly three weeks ago. Which was something they hadn’t known when Tony had turned up with it.

And Tony hadn’t been as sick as the rest of them had gotten initially, although his already run-down state had pretty much guaranteed that it would take longer for him to recover. Bruce frowned, that wasn’t right either, and it was bothering him. Shouldn’t Tony have been sicker than the rest of them? Because he’d been weaker, less able to fight the virus off? He definitely should have. Mentally, Bruce rearranged the pieces of the puzzle, trying to find the pattern that was eluding him. He knew there had to be one, and he knew figuring it out was the key to the whole thing. Because it wasn’t simple or cheap to engineer a working virus, and although people might think otherwise it wouldn’t necessarily be easy to spread it – especially not to the Avengers, SHIELD, and the Fantastic Four.

Thinking about the Fantastic Four gave him another idea, and he picked up the phone and called them. Ben, unsurprisingly, was the one who answered. “Don’t tell me we’ve got someone else attackin’ the city,” the Thing grumbled without preamble. “One of your real simple plans today was enough for me, really.”

“Ben, it’s Bruce,” Bruce told him. “I just had an idea, I wasn’t sure whether any of you had thought of it or not. I think that if Johnny flamed up, he might burn the virus out of his system. Has he tried it?”

“No, he’s just been lazin’ around the place and whining,” Ben said. “Hey, Hot Stuff!” he called away from the phone. “Bruce thinks that if you flame up, you won’t be sick anymore.” In the background Bruce could hear a hoarsely enthusiastic reply, and he choked back a laugh when Ben suddenly yelled, “No, not in here, you moron! Get up on the roof or somethin’!” His voice came back to the receiver again. “He’s gonna go try it. So I’m guessing you turning into the Other Guy fixed you up? Steve said he thought it would.”

“He was right, yeah. I’m not sick at all now.”

“How is Steve? He really took a beating today with just the three of us out there.”

Bruce sighed. “He’s resting – not very comfortably with three broken ribs, but he’s resting. Thor’s mother is riding herd on the rest of them while I’m down in the lab.” He had a thought. “Ben, you heard the conversation Steve had with Fury, right?”

Ben’s laugh boomed in his ear so loudly that Bruce had to hold the phone away until it stopped. “Yeah, I can’t believe he tried to mother-hen Fury over the phone – especially after the one-eyed bastard tried to order him in to headquarters for a debriefin’. Steve said he figured all of Fury’s people were too scared of him to make him take care of himself.”

“I wouldn’t doubt it.” Bruce was frowning, though. He remembered Steve saying Fury had tried to call him in after the fight, but it hadn’t really registered until Ben had repeated it. Now he was wondering why Fury would have tried to give an order like that while Steve was out in the field alone with an unconscious teammate, a visiting Asgardian, and the most volatile member of the Fantastic Four – not that Bruce didn’t like Ben, but he’d always known Fury to be very distrustful of the other local superhero team. Another puzzle piece; Bruce set it aside for further consideration, some instinct warning him not to discuss his vague suspicions with Ben at this point. “So SHIELD didn’t send anyone out there to help? Anyone at all?”

“Not a soul,” Ben confirmed. Someone called out in the background, and he snorted. “Well, Johnny’s back and still whinin’. He said flamin’ on cleared out his nose and stopped the cough for the time being, but now he has a headache and his throat still hurts.”

“Well, it was worth a shot – at least he’ll be able to breathe easier now.” Bruce sighed again. “Tell him to try hot tea with honey for his throat. Steve’s been pouring it down all of us, and it really does help.”

“I’m sure it does,” Ben observed sarcastically; Bruce could almost hear him rolling his eyes. “And now we know the mother-hen thing he’s got is contagious too. I’m hangin’ up now before I get a sudden urge to go over and see if Doom’s takin’ care of himself or not. Let me know if anything changes.”

“I will,” Bruce promised, and disconnected on his end. And then went back to staring at the wall, wondering what the results of the test results he was running would be and what he was going to do if they told him what he was thinking they would.

 

Two hours later, Bruce was staring at the results he’d been expecting – the virus had definitely been engineered, its DNA showed clear signs of having been spliced. Initially, it was considerably less dangerous than the regular seasonal flu; it would make you miserable, but you’d get over it after a week or so. Tony, Phil, Clint and Natasha all had what he assumed was the initial strain, unmutated, and they were all now producing temporary antibodies that would keep them from catching it again for at least a couple of weeks. Thor was too, but his were for a mutated strain that was a bit more robust. Steve, though, didn’t have any antibodies yet, because the virus hadn’t been able to actually infect him – his serum-enhanced cells just wouldn’t let it settle in and start replicating. So it had continued to mutate. It was like it had tried to get in, and when his body had thrown up a wall, the virus had mutated into a hammer. When a hammer hadn’t gotten through, it had mutated into a sledgehammer, and then a jackhammer, and now it was heading into heavy weapons territory. Steve’s system was already so tied up fighting it off that his body was refusing to heal itself even as much as a normal person’s would have; when Bruce had taken blood from him, the tiny hole from the needle had required a makeshift pressure bandage because it wouldn’t stop bleeding the way it should have.

So the virus had been engineered to attack the strong, not the weak. Which explained why there hadn’t been any deaths, because whoever had created it had defined ‘strong’ as someone like Thor or Steve and there just weren’t many people like that around, even in the superhero community. Which also meant it couldn’t be a plot to take out superheroes to weaken Earth’s defenses, because the number affected would be too small to make a real difference. Was the plan to have Steve re-infect the others with the WMD version of the virus once it finally did break through his formidable metabolic defenses? That sounded plausible, logical even…except for the fact that the data said it couldn’t happen. The virus was highly contagious, but it went dormant fairly quickly after fully infecting someone and it wouldn’t re-attack someone who had the temporary antibodies from another strain in their system anyway – basically, it would only attack you if you hadn’t been attacked by it already. The virus had been built with a completely illogical kill-switch, at least if you were planning to use it as a biological weapon.

Which meant it had been engineered – and spread – for some other reason. Bruce frowned at the data in front of him. The reaction the virus was having to Steve had to be the key, he just couldn’t see the lock it was supposed to fit into. The virus mutated in response to the amount of resistance it encountered. Which in someone like Steve could make the virus mutate into a supervirus, but one that Bruce didn’t think was going to do any worse to him than the initial version had to everyone else, and that Steve wouldn’t be able to pass on to anybody else – in the Tower, at least – thanks to the engineered kill-switch. Unless someone reverse-engineered it out of his blood, of course…

Bruce dropped the pencil he’d been toying with as the key slotted neatly into the lock and the whole thing opened up for him with horrifying clarity. You release your carefully engineered virus in New York City, a city densely packed with people, and then you wait until it becomes a minor epidemic. That had been Phase One. Once the epidemic is well established, you deliberately infect the most susceptible member of your target’s team, thus introducing the virus into said team in a way that looks completely natural – after all, the virus is going around, right? Phase Two. Then the entire team becomes infected, all except for your target, who everyone believes can’t get sick. Which leaves your target in a position to wear himself down, taking care of his sick teammates and handling anything that comes up on his own. This gives your virus an opening into his supposedly impenetrable immune system, and the fight you were counting on to spur the mutation to new heights is on. Phase Three. Which meant that Phase Four would have to be…

Retrieval. They would have to get hold of Steve to get their supervirus, and they would need to keep him for a while – they weren’t going to get what they wanted in a few hours, possibly not even in a few days. And if he was still fighting the virus when they took him, they would want to wait until he’d been fully infected so as to get the strongest virus possible. Which meant they had plans to keep him, and they weren’t worried about the other Avengers or SHIELD coming after him. Which meant the whole ridiculously huge, complicated plan could only have come from one place, the only place on Earth where Steve Rogers could be held incommunicado for an indeterminate length of time without anyone thinking they needed to come rescue him and reducing that place to a heap of rubble to accomplish it.

Bruce’s mouth went dry as he thought through the implications of that. Nothing in a project of that magnitude could be left to chance. Were they watching, listening to what went on in the tower? They almost had to be, because they’d need to know when it was time to take custody of their ‘project’ – which they could easily justify doing, because said project _wasn’t supposed to be able to get sick_. Bruce started to ask Jarvis to check for bugs, but then he remembered that the first thing someone who could hack the tower’s systems like that would do would be to make sure Jarvis couldn’t tell anyone or undo what they’d done on his own. Fortunately, Tony was paranoid, and he’d taught all his fellow Avengers a handful of coded messages which would trigger automatic defensive protocols that he’d hard-coded into the tower’s AI. The messages went with certain sequences of actions that wouldn’t look too suspicious if someone was watching instead of just listening, an extra layer of security just in case. Bruce fumbled around on his desk and came up with a stapler. He held it up in one hand, rested the other hand palm-up on his knee. “Jarvis, I’m having trouble with this phone. Can you get me a signal, please?”

“Certainly, Dr. Banner.” And then a really bad elevator music version of the roach song from _Hairspray_ started to play, and Bruce relaxed; that was the right response, it meant their ‘bug’ problem was being fixed. The music shut off after ten minutes and Jarvis’s voice came back. “The system has been purged of unauthorized transmissions, the tower has been locked down to prevent unauthorized intrusions, and I have notified Mr. Stark. Shall I allow him out of the residential area?”

“Yes,” Bruce agreed at once. And then he picked up the phone and re-dialed the Baxter Building. “Ben,” he said before whoever had picked up could say a word. “It’s Bruce. You need to check your car, we found a rare species of arachnid living in our engine block, they might have gotten into yours too.”

“Oh shit, hang on.” Johnny. Bruce heard him repeat the coded message word for word, and then he heard Ben cursing and a very stuffed-up sounding Reed hoarsely coughing out orders. The phone went dead. Bruce hung up on his end and went back to his data. They’d call back once any bugs on their end had been taken care of.

It was about thirty minutes later when the phone finally rang, the caller ID flashing the name R. Richards. Tony was already there in the lab with him, angrily punching keys on his own laptop and muttering hoarse curses under his breath, so Bruce answered the call on speaker. “You’ve got Bruce and Tony,” he said.

“Reed’s swearing a blue streak,” Ben told him. “He had to cut us off the grid completely to kill the outgoing signal. You guys have any idea…”

“I fucking wish,” Tony snarled. “But once I find the bastards, they’re going to wish to god I hadn’t.”

“My initial run of tests are done, and I’m positive the main target was Steve,” Bruce explained. “If I’m right, their idea was to use him to turn their engineered bug into an unstoppable superbug – the virus only mutates when it’s being resisted, once it gets in it stops and goes dormant and then the symptoms manifest. The serum made Steve’s immune system highly resistant to intrusion, and right now his body has shoved everything the serum gave it into resisting the virus, which makes the virus mutate further and attack harder. It’s a vicious cycle, and it will just keep escalating.”

Silence. Then, in a tone much softer and quieter than most people realized Ben Grimm was capable of using, “Is Steve gonna be okay?”

“Not at the moment, no.” Bruce took a breath. “If it was just the virus things would be different, but…his injuries from the fight earlier aren’t healing, Ben; Frigga just told us a few minutes ago that one of the cuts is actually starting to show signs of infection. And I had to apply pressure for several minutes to stop the bleeding when I drew off a vial of his blood. If he got a papercut right now, it’s possible he could bleed to death from it.”

“Does he know what’s goin’ on?”

“No. He woke up a few hours ago, just for a minute, but he…he thought Frigga was his mother.”

“Jesus.” Bruce honestly couldn’t be sure if that had been meant as a curse or an invocation. And then there was a growl that made the hair on the back of his neck stand up, and made the Other Guy stir restlessly. “Was it SHIELD?”

“I don’t know yet,” Tony responded immediately. “They were my first thought, and Bruce’s too, but some of the evidence isn’t pointing to them quite the way I want it to if I’m gonna go rip their building out from under them and then let the rest of you stomp on the pieces. It’s possible they’ve been infiltrated, but I can’t be sure yet.”

“Fury tried to call Steve in for a debriefing,” Bruce reminded him quietly. “He tried to give the order twice in one phone call.”

“Oh, I didn’t forget about that,” Tony assured him. His jaw was clenched. “Unfortunately, that’s one of the things that makes me think it might not be him, or at least that he doesn’t know about it. Infecting the entire country with an experimental virus and then calling Steve in at a time when one, SHIELD headquarters is under quarantine, and two, people would actually be concerned if he didn’t come back right away? That’s a completely ridiculous amount of overkill _and_ not very well thought out. And as much as I personally dislike the manipulative one-eyed bastard, he’s a hell of a lot better planner than that and so are most of the people who work for him.”

“I agree.” That was Reed Richards, so Ben must have put their phone on speaker as well. “This is far too heavy-handed for SHIELD, especially when they could have simply called Steve in for testing any time they liked under the guise of having a ‘mission’ for him without anyone becoming suspicious.”

“Yes, which is what’s making me think it’s someone who’s been working on their own agenda from inside SHIELD, because obviously they _couldn’t_ call him in without someone getting suspicious.” Tony coughed into his fist. “That suspicious someone probably would have been Fury, who would be the last person someone with an agenda that isn’t his wants finding out what they’re up to.”

“Fury’s too sick himself to wonder about it right now,” Bruce pointed out. “So the suggestion to call Steve in may have been less him being cranky and more because someone else suggested they needed to see him if he came in for some other reason. They may have even told Fury they wanted to check Steve’s reaction to the virus, see if he’d generated some sort of antibody they could use.”

“So yeah, it would almost have to be someone in Medical or R&D,” Tony said, still typing. “I’m leaning towards Medical, because one, they have access to the right resources, and two, Steve hates them and they’re always complaining that he won’t come down there when they ask.”

“That’s because they treat him like a science experiment,” Bruce explained calmly, ignoring the roar of rage coming from somewhere inside his head at that thought. “They’d do it to me too if they could, but the Other Guy wouldn’t like it too much.”

“The rest of us wouldn’t like it too much either,” Tony grumbled. “But you’re right, they have waaay too many people down there who light up like a Christmas tree whenever our fearless leader gets hurt. I’m going to concentrate my search on the medical staff, see if anything pops up.” He frowned. “Of course, we just turned off their ears and maybe eyes in two locations; they might show up to find out what’s going on.”

“I’m pretty sure they will, eventually, but they won’t come alone,” Bruce warned. “They were able to get Fury to try to call Steve in earlier, I don’t think it would take too much to get him to come stomping over here with medical personnel and armed agents, demanding that we hand Steve over to them – because Steve’s not supposed to be able to get sick, so if they tell Fury he is it’s going to hit the fan. Fury will be convinced that he’s doing the right thing, and whoever’s pulling the strings will get Steve and their supervirus handed to them on a silver platter.”

“Not happening,” Tony almost growled, trying to hold back another cough and not quite succeeding. “No-way no-how, not on my watch.”

“What he said,” Ben agreed with another growl of his own. “We’ll let you get to it, we’re gonna see if we can figure out when we got bugged and how they got in. Call if anything happens.”

“We will, you too,” Bruce promised, and then hit the button to disconnect. The expression he turned on Tony, though, was an odd combination of realization and worry. “I think I may have an idea,” he said slowly. “It just came to me, I think it might work…but nobody is going to like it.”

Tony snorted. “The fact that you said it that way tells me it’ll probably end up being the best plan we’ve got and the only one that has even the slightest chance of working. So yeah, I’m sure we’ll all hate it.” He glanced over briefly. “Kind of like we hated the one Steve came up with earlier.”

Bruce slanted a look back. “I expect you to apologize to him for that.” He held up a hand before Tony could protest. “Not for being mad, for comparing him to Fury.”

The other man hesitated, and then slowly nodded. “Yeah, you’re right – I do owe him an apology for that.”

 

In the Baxter Building, Ben was frowning at Reed, who was staring at the now-silent phone with a worried frown of his own. “Reed? What is it?”

Slowly, the leader of the Fantastic Four shook his head. “For a person willing to take such risks with the public, to do something that can be done more safely – although more slowly – in a lab under controlled conditions, an initial victory would almost certainly encourage them to pursue other…projects such as this. And to that end, they would doubtless attempt to convince their superiors that Steve Rogers would be an infinitely more valuable resource in a lab than at the Tower.”

Johnny Storm shook his head too, disagreeing. “I know none of us like the bastard, but I don’t think Fury would…”

“I didn’t say Director Fury, I said their superiors. Possibly the World Security Council? I don’t know, I’m sure Tony will find out.” Reed sighed. “But I am certain that if SHIELD gets hold of Steve because of this particular situation, the Avengers are going to have a very difficult time getting him back. If they can get him back at all.”

Johnny started to reply to that, but started coughing instead. Ben looked from him to Reed. “I can go over there, as backup.”

Reed thought about that for a minute, and then he shook his head again. “No. No, I don’t think that’s a good idea.” He took a breath, blew it out with just a hint of a cough of his own. “I think we need to stay on the outside, just in case – remember, whoever is behind this somehow managed to compromise Stark Industries’ security as well as ours, they may have resources we aren’t yet aware of. I think we might be the last chance for getting Steve back if they manage to get him out of the Tower. Because no matter what, we cannot let them get him into their headquarters or aboard the Helicarrier. I fear that if they do, none of us will ever see him again.”

Ben frowned, not liking the idea of sitting and waiting for his buddy to need rescuing, but he also knew Reed was right. “Yeah, okay.” He pushed up off his chair. “While you two keep goin’ through the security records, I’m gonna go make some tea. Johnny sounds like he needs it and you do too. And Suzy’ll want some when she wakes up.” He scowled when Johnny started to laugh and cough at the same time, aiming a threatening orange finger at the younger man. “Not one word, Hot Stuff, not one word. Because if I caught super-mother-hen disease from Steve and Bruce? One of you is gonna end up catchin’ it from me, just you wait.”

 

An hour and a half later, the Avengers were all in their family room, and the Fantastic Four were back on the speakerphone; only Frigga – who had been persuaded to go to bed after everyone had eaten dinner – and Steve were missing. “I don’t know what this idea you have is,” Ben was saying, “but if the lead-up is anything to go by, I’m already pretty sure I don’t like it.”

“You’re all going to hate it, but it’s the best way to stop them from having the leverage they need to remove Steve from the tower,” Bruce replied. “I’m going to infect him with the virus.” Tony, Clint and Ben and – surprisingly – Johnny Storm started objecting to that all at once. “Listen!” Bruce insisted over their protests. “Steve knew what he was doing before with the Other Guy, I know what I’m doing now. If this works…well yeah, he’s gonna get sick. But it will be the same thing all of you had, and after a week or so of being miserable and cranky he’ll be over it and immune.”

The speakerphone crackled. “It’s got every chance of working,” Reed Richards stated. Bruce had sent him the results of the tests he’d run, wanting a second opinion. “Once the virus is in…”

“And Steve can’t fight it off right now, because his entire system is tied up with the mutated version,” Bruce put in.

“…It will infect him, and that will activate the ‘kill switch’ which has been built into it.”

“And then he’ll develop the same temporary antibodies all of you did, which are really just the kill switch broadcasting that the virus doesn’t need to try again in that particular host.” Bruce shrugged his shoulders. “It was engineered to do that. So the kill switch being activated _should_ turn off the mutated version of the virus.”

“And if it doesn’t?” Phil wanted to know.

“Then we all suit up and get ready to defend the tower with everything we’ve got, because someone _will_ be coming for Steve, and they won’t be turned away by anything short of us beating them into the ground,” Tony said quietly. “He’s not just the key to their supervirus, but also to the only possible antivirus. They’ve put too much into this, they can’t _not_ retrieve him.”

“If they attempt it, then we will paint this tower with their blood,” Thor rumbled darkly.

“Pepper and Jarvis would have a fit and make you clean it all up afterwards,” Clint told him. “I’m all for terminating the problem, though. With extreme prejudice.”

Natasha cleared her throat. “I will assist you.”

“Okay, so we’ve got that part planned,” Tony said, and rolled his eyes at the disapproving Phil. “Hey, you guys named us the Avengers, we’re going to avenge – with extreme prejudice, if they attack the tower. It’s not like we’re headed out into the streets to hunt them down.”

“Actually…”

“Clint, don’t help.” Tony turned back to Bruce. “How long until we know if it’ll work or not?”

Bruce shrugged. “Maybe half an hour. He’s not capable of fighting it off at all right now. Honestly, our biggest problem is going to be keeping him from bleeding out through the injection site.”

“Once the kill-switch is activated, however, his enhanced healing should slowly start to reassert itself,” came from Reed.

“His existing injuries – including the one I’m going to cause by injecting him with the virus – probably won’t start healing for a day or two at least, though,” Bruce warned. “We’re going to have to be very careful with him in the meantime.” He gave the still-scowling Phil a meaningful look. “I doubt these people realized that his healing could totally shut down because of this, and I doubt they’d listen if we tried to tell them. A kidnapping attempt could kill him, even if they don’t get away with it.”

Phil nodded, his jaw tight. “I understand that, yes. But we need to try to limit the bloodshed, even if the tower is attacked, if at all possible,” he insisted. “I know everyone is angry, _I’m_ angry, but there is a very fine line between heroes and vigilantes and this conversation is playing hopscotch all over it.”

“No one’s going to do anything unnecessary,” Tony assured him. “Right, Thor?”

Thor shook his head, but it wasn’t a negation. “I do not like it, but I understand the need for,” his lip curled, “moderation in our response to these evildoers. Mother will understand as well. Friend Clint, Lady Natasha?”

“Fine, no extreme prejudice – just regular prejudice,” Clint agreed, and Natasha nodded her head. “But if anyone who isn’t us gets within ten feet of Steve’s room, I reserve the right to upgrade my response accordingly.”

“Agreed.” That came from Phil. “If anyone gets that far, do what you need to do, I’ll back you up. Otherwise, though…moderation.”

“And if they somehow manage to get past all of you, we’ll be ready to stop them,” Reed put in. “I still don’t know how they bugged our building, or how long the bugs have been in place, and that concerns me. Tony, have you had any more luck?”

“No.” It was obvious he hated to admit it, too. “And we have even better security than you do, so I’m twice as concerned – not to mention, Jarvis identified what I think are the transmitters as being in places that are completely inaccessible to humans without taking the building apart – which we haven’t done in quite a while. So either this is the longest-running and most subtle evil scientist plot in the history of ever, or they’re using tech we’ve never seen before.” He grimaced. “I’d much rather it was the first one, not the last one, actually. The last time we caught SHIELD with shiny new borrowed tech, Steve hit the fucking roof because he recognized it as being based on stuff HYDRA used to use, weapons created using the Cube.”

“I thought the Cube went home with Thor last year?” Johnny wanted to know.

“It did,” Thor assured him. “It is well secured, never fear.”

“No one’s implying it isn’t,” Tony said. “What I’m saying is that SHIELD takes charge of securing all kinds of neat stuff they find in the hands of bad guys, and we know they’re not above appropriating it for themselves. So we could be dealing with just about anything, and quite possibly it’s nothing we’ve ever seen before.”

“That sure narrows it down,” Ben grumped. “I’ll just start imaginin’ stuff and we’ll go lookin’ for it.”

“Actually, that’s not a bad idea,” came from Phil. “Most of the agents – even at my level – aren’t privy to what goes on in SHIELD’s R&D department. But trying to think of what _could_ place transmitters in those locations and then eliminating the possibilities one by one might be more effective than starting with known tech that we know couldn’t do the job and working from there.”

“Jarvis found what we think are our transmitters on the nodes – those are under the floor, four on each floor of the tower, sitting in about a six-inch space,” Tony explained. “Nothing bigger than a mouse is getting in there without ripping up the floor to do it – and we know nobody has ripped up the floor.”

“Nobody has been into ours, either,” Reed said thoughtfully. “I can reach them without opening the floor, of course, but no one else can. So something small…”

“Something that wouldn’t set Jarvis’s alarms off,” Tony put in. Bruce’s watch beeped just then, and he got up and slipped quietly out of the room. Thor and then Natasha trickled out after him, leaving Phil and Clint with Tony. “He’d have noticed if some kind of machine had been put in there.”

“Possibly not, if it was a different kind of machine, something designed _not_ to be noticed,” Reed mused. “Something not made of metal?”

“He’d have noticed motion,” Tony disagreed. “Because those are places where motion doesn’t belong.”

“What about a bug? Or a mouse?” came from Johnny, and in the background Ben rumbled agreement with that idea. “Jarvis wouldn’t set off an alarm every time a bug got in, right? Or you’d be listening to alarms every minute of every day.”

“Because insects are everywhere,” Phil agreed, nodding. “And just a few wouldn’t trigger a call to the exterminator, either.”

“No, Jarvis ignores individual insects, mice, or rats,” Tony said. “Although we have things set up to trap rats and squirrels if they get in, so it couldn’t have been rat-sized. Jarvis?” he called, getting an idea. “Can you tell in what order the floors were compromised? Was it bottom-up or top-down?”

A pause. “The order of irregularities in my system memory suggests the infection began on the ground floor, sir.”

“So something that was either carried in or crawled in on its own, not something that was flown in or dropped from above to come in at roof-level,” Clint mused.

“Something no one would notice in the lobby, which probably rules out mice,” Phil added. “Jarvis, any sign of unusually stationary insects, maybe spiders without webs?”

In answer, the flat screen turned on and a light-wire diagram of the tower appeared, the nodes on each floor like small, glowing red hearts. Black dots began to appear on the nodes, moving upwards floor by floor as Jarvis searched. “Oh yeah, we’ve got spiders.” Tony shook his head. “Reed, I bet you’ve got them too. Can you feel around one of your nodes, maybe pull one out?”

“Already on it.” A moment later, Reed said, “Yes, I can feel something there. I don’t want to try pulling it out, though, I want to see how it’s attached. Ben, if you would open the floor right there, where the end table with the lamp is…” There was a splintering noise, and an outraged protest from Sue Storm in the background. “I’ll fix it later,” Reed promised his wife. “But this is…ah yes, there it is. It looks very much like a common household spider.”

“The furry kind,” Ben put in, humming over it. “Looks like the ‘fur’ may be filaments of some sort, some of them are sunk into the node casing.”

“Yes, and its legs are clamped on as well.” The scientist was starting to sound distracted. “This is an absolutely unprecedented piece of technology – at this small size, anyway. I’ll work on getting it off without destroying it. Johnny, take a picture of this, would you, and send it to Tony.”

“Done and done,” Johnny said in the background. “Want one from another angle?”

Tony was looking at his phone. “No, this will do, thanks. Jarvis, does this image match what you’re finding?”

“Yes sir, it does. There is one such spider on each node on each floor of the tower.”

“Monitor them for any signs of activity, any signs at all,” Tony ordered. “Reed, let me know what you find. I’m gonna go see how Bruce is doing with his plan we all hate.”

 

In Steve’s bedroom, Bruce pulled the rubber strip tighter on the supersoldier’s upper arm, frowning at how long it was taking the vein to pop up – they needed to get some liquids into him, and soon. He injected the virus and placed a thick folded square of gauze over the needle before pulling it out, pressing down hard. Almost immediately, a spot of blood appeared on top of the gauze. “Dammit.”

Tony came hurrying in, trailed by Clint and Phil, and looked over his shoulder. “It’ll stop in a minute or so, right?”

“I hope so.” A minute passed, then two, and Bruce switched out the red-saturated gauze for a fresh square. It took a few seconds longer this time, but a red spot appeared on top once again. It was spreading more slowly than before, though. “Okay, I think it’s trying to clot. A few more minutes and the bleeding should have stopped – we’ll just need to be careful not to let him move his arm around too much, or the clot could break and it could start up again.”

“But he should begin healing again…”

“No, not that quickly.” Bruce looked at the hopeful, clueless faces and rolled his eyes. “Like I said before, it’ll be at least half an hour before we’ll be able to tell if the virus has ‘taken’. All we can do is wait - this isn’t a TV show, it’s not like we can just go to commercial and then skip forward to the point where we find out if it worked or not.”

 

Twenty-six minutes later – Clint and Tony were both counting, much to Bruce’s annoyance – Steve sighed in his sleep, shifting uncomfortably but not waking up. His temperature was still high. At forty-eight minutes, though, his temperature started to drop, and it leveled off at just over a hundred degrees at the one-hour and nine-minute mark. Bruce waited an hour past that, then risked taking another blood sample; this time, to his relief, the bleeding from the little hole stopped in just under two minutes. “I have to run some tests for verification, but I think it’s working,” he said. He held up a hand when everyone – nobody had been willing to leave the room, even though it was nearly midnight – looked a little too relieved. “If it’s working, he has the original virus – the one all of us except Thor had,” he cautioned. “Besides being miserable and sick, his healing still isn’t back online, and until it is – which might not happen for a couple of days – he’s fragile. We can’t let him get dehydrated, we can’t let him get a cut or a bruise, we can’t let him start throwing up or coughing too hard and make those broken ribs worse. We can’t leave him alone, not even for a minute, got it? Someone has to be in this room, and awake, every minute of every day until his healing kicks back in fully.” He stood up. “I’ll be back as soon as I have the results of the tests. Figure out who’s staying and then the rest of you get out until it’s your turn.”

“Nat and I will stay until you get back,” Clint offered immediately.

“We should all stay in pairs,” Natasha agreed. “One person might fall asleep without being aware of it, two will not.”

“Works for me,” Bruce told her. “Thor, Tony, Phil – out. Thor, you can come back when your mother does.”

 

And thus began a very long night in Avengers Tower. Natasha and Clint switched out with Tony and Phil after a few hours of watching, and then an hour or so after that Frigga reappeared wearing the clothes Pepper had loaned her and made both of them leave; Phil woke Thor up to go sit with her before he went back to bed himself, but Tony only made the briefest stop at his own room to freshen up before heading back down to the lab with Bruce. Who was asleep on his desk when Tony got there, something Tony took a picture of with his phone and sent to all the other Avengers. Frigga appeared five minutes later to make Bruce go to bed, but allowed him to take a nap on the couch in the next room instead when he refused to leave his work. Tony accused Bruce of being Frigga’s favorite, which made Bruce smile in a very smug way before he went to sleep.

Tony himself continued working on the bug problem. He finally managed to figure out that the bugs had been planted over a period of about a month, and that had been a month when the Avengers had, as a group and individually, been very, very busy. He flagged the incidents they’d been busy with in the system, resolving to check them over later just in case some or all of them had been planned or ‘allowed’ to happen. The bugs themselves he was reluctantly leaving to Reed, because getting to the ones in the tower would involve ripping up the floor and possibly disconnecting one or more of the nodes, which would leave Jarvis completely blind and deaf in the disconnected section until the node could be hooked back in. They couldn’t afford to do that at a time when SHIELD might suddenly come knocking with intent to invade the tower and take one of their teammates, so Tony was having to wait for Reed to figure that part out for him.

He had plenty of other things to do, though. He had multiple algorithms searching SHIELD’s databases, seeking out matching data correlating dates, events, and people. He programmed in some new security measures, and cobbled together an addition for the scanning-cameras in the elevators so that anyone who used them would be checked for unnaturally high concentrations of viruses, bacteria, or chemicals – as an afterthought, he sent an email to Pepper telling her that he might have just solved the TSA’s scanning problems and would be sending her details as soon as he could. Bruce got up from his nap after about an hour and dove back into his virus studies, and Tony started integrating what he was finding with the already-running searches.

Unfortunately, he had just calculated that the most promising search had about an hour to go when the silent alarm went off, red lights flashing everywhere. “Director Fury is here, sir,” Jarvis announced. “He is attempting to use the emergency security override you gave him. I have muted the audible alarm, and kept the visible alarm from going off in Captain Rogers’ room.”

“Good thinking, Jarvis.” Tony pushed back his laptop and grabbed a tissue to blow his nose. “How many of them are there?”

"Director Fury and four others. Two of them are armed, as well as Director Fury."

Tony waved that off. "I wouldn't expect Fury not to be. He probably wears a gun and four knives into the shower." He glance at Bruce, who was quietly notifying the other Avengers via text message to meet them in the family room/foyer that served the residential level. "Are the new sensors working, Jarvis?"

"Yes sir. Nothing has been detected so far, but if a live virus or any other potentially harmful substance is detected, the elevators and stairwells will be sealed."

"That works - just be sure to indicate which person is the source of the problem if you have to do that, and announce it in the elevators, too. Okay, let them come up – go slow, though, we’ll need a few minutes to assemble up there to meet them."

 

The elevator disgorged Fury at the head of his little entourage a few minutes later, and the first thing he did was scowl at the half-circle of people who were waiting for him. “I don’t know what you clowns think you’re doing over here, but you are all officially on my shit list – and that includes you, Coulson. I thought you all cared more about your team leader than this.”

“Oh yep, that’s a big ‘no’ for him getting any further in,” Tony observed, folding his arms across his chest. “Jarvis, tell Thor we’re officially condition red, and alert Richards and his team too.”

“Belay that, Jarvis,” Fury barked. “Override authorization 11442-Beta.”

“Transferring voice control to SHIELD Director Nicholas Fury,” Jarvis intoned with a noticeable lack of inflection. “Do you have any orders, Director?”

“I do!” Clint sang out before Fury could do more than open his mouth. “Jarvis, listen to me: _Zip-a-dee do dah, zip-a-dee-ay, My-oh-my what a wonderful day_ …”

Fury stared at him, his mouth still open, his expression clearly stating that he thought his agent might just have gone insane. Tony was grinning like a loon. “He has a nice voice, doesn’t he?” he commented. “And a thing for Disney, but nobody’s perfect. Jarvis, have you had enough?”

In response, Jarvis started to sing the song along with Clint, which sounded surprisingly nice. “I guess not.” Tony shrugged it off and pitched his voice a little louder to compensate. “Okay, now you guys wanted what? Because you should already know we’re not going to let you take Steve. Was that the only reason you came stomping up here, or did you have another reason too? Like maybe finding out why your illegal wiretapping setup stopped working?”

Fury’s head snapped around, but it was one of the medical men with him who answered. “We were just monitoring you,” the man said soothingly. “After all, you are the Avengers, and almost all of you were sick with this thing that’s going around. It was just a precaution, for your own safety…”

“So what was the illegal surveillance setup in the Baxter Building for, then?” Bruce wanted to know. “You were concerned about the effect of the virus on superheroes? Or maybe trying to figure out why Ben Grimm didn’t get it?”

The man didn’t quite roll his eyes. “The Thing is basically living rock, I doubt any terrestrial disease could infect him. But to answer your question, yes, we were concerned about the Fantastic Four as well. And there’s really nobody else qualified to treat a sick meta-human outside of SHIELD Medical.” He puffed up a little. “We take our responsibilities very seriously, Mr. Banner.”

“That’s Doctor.”

The man smiled a patronizing little smile. “You may work in the bio-sciences, but you aren’t a medical doctor and using your title confuses people. Hence the reason your co-workers turn to you when they need something instead of coming to us.”

“No, actually, we don’t come to you because you’re dicks who see the pain and suffering of certain members of our team as a happy learning opportunity,” Tony observed. “And jesus, Fury, what did you do to my AI? If this becomes a medley of Clint’s top-ten favorite Disney songs, I’m billing you for pain and suffering on top of damages.”

Fury scowled. “Of course we have our own security measures in place, Stark! What if you were compromised?”

“Yeah, the problem with that argument is…I’m not compromised now,” Tony shot back. “You came in here to take one of my teammates by force - which would endanger his life, by the way, if we actually let your little goon squad get to him, which they won’t – and the first thing you tried to do was take over my building and disable all the security.”

“Captain Rogers is sick…”

“And just how did you know that?” Bruce asked mildly. He was giving Fury a very intense look. “Exactly _how_ did you know Steve was sick? Who told you? Because it wasn’t him, and it wasn’t any of us. And did you actually authorize the bugs in this tower and the Baxter Building, or did Medical tell you about them at the same time they told you they needed to come get Steve?”

“Do I even want to know where Hill is, does she even know what’s going on?” Coulson asked before his boss could respond to that; it wasn’t like he couldn’t read the answer in the other man’s expression. “Tony, when will this…music be over so I can ask Jarvis to call Hill for me?”

“It’ll be over once any voice overrides that don’t fit the protocols are neutralized,” Tony told him. “Luckily, Clint has great lungs…”

Fury was scowling again. “You wrote a program using songs from children’s movies to neutralize a high-level security override?”

“Gee, when you say it that way you make it sound kind of silly.” Tony shrugged. “Yes. And Clint helped.”

The other medical man with Fury stepped forward. “Gentlemen, this is all very entertaining, but Dr. Eames and I are here to see about Captain Rogers. If he really has contracted the virus, we need to get him back to headquarters immediately. His life could be in danger…”

“Because he’s not supposed to be able to get sick, yes, we know that already,” Bruce countered. He was still calm. “Are you one of the ones who knows the virus is an engineered construct, or is he,” he nodded towards the patronizing doctor, “the only one?”

“Engineered?”

“The CDC said this virus is perfectly natural,” Fury countered. “I know Captain Rogers has been paranoid about it…”

“Yeah, well, my tests – which I had Reed Richards double-check for me – said the CDC was wrong,” Bruce told him. “Nothing about the way this virus behaves is natural. In fact, it behaves almost entirely the opposite of the way a natural virus like influenza would.”

“Shouldn’t that be all the more reason to have Captain Rogers treated in a proper medical facility with actual medical doctors who have studied his metabolism?” the patronizing doctor, Eames, questioned. “And if you’ve been attempting to treat him – or anyone else here – I’m going to report you for practicing medicine without a license, _Doctor_ Banner.”

Bruce wasn't impressed. "And they'll haul me in to do what, give me a disapproving look? If they even bother, since they're going to be really busy dealing with you. It was you, wasn’t it? You’re the person who cooked up this insanely large and overcomplicated plan?"

"Yeah, starting epidemics for fun and profit is frowned upon," Tony agreed. Abruptly, Jarvis stopped singing; a beat later so did Clint. “Oh thank god, five more minutes and I would have shot someone.”

“Nice job, Clint,” Phil said. “The mermaid song was a little flat, though.”

Clint gave him a wounded look. “That was Jarvis, not me.”

“Ah, sorry.”

Fury put his hands on his hips. "What on earth are you idiots talking about?"

"Other than Jarvis singing off-key? Let’s try who told you that they needed to see Steve the next time he came in, say for his debriefing after yesterday’s thing with Loki?" Bruce countered. "I'd guess they said that, since he hadn't gotten the virus, they wanted to take a look at him. Maybe they suggested it could help come up with an antiviral that would be effective against this particular virus?"

"Someone did mention that, so?"

"Geez, you really are still sick, aren't you?" Tony said, rolling his eyes. "I have never seen you this off-the-ball before. How could they get an antivirus off of him if he didn't have the virus, Fury? He wouldn't have been producing any antibodies for them to use."

"He has it now..."

"Because I gave it to him last night,” Bruce countered. “His system was so occupied with fighting off the mutating strain of the virus - it was about up to its twelfth iteration at that point – that his injuries from yesterday’s fight weren't healing, his blood was barely even clotting. " He fixed a hard brown eye on the now visibly excited Dr. Eames. "I used that to infect him with the initial strain, the same one you had Tony infected with – the same one everyone else had, too – that isn’t dangerous in the least. The virus’s kill switch kicked in within about an hour of him being infected and shut down the mutated version."

Excitement immediately gave way to outrage. "You _what_?! But that means all the progress the virus had made is lost!"

Fury’s eye widened, and Clint sniffed. "Can I escalate my response now?"

"No Clint, sorry." Bruce raised an eyebrow at the outraged doctor. "Just the fact that you were willing to turn the virus loose on the public to get whatever it was that you wanted tells me you're only about two steps away from setting up a secret hideout in a volcano and monologuing at your enemies when you capture them."

"The virus was perfectly safe," Eames argued. "It hasn't caused a single fatality, and it wasn't going to kill Captain Rogers; I wouldn't do something like that. But his serum-enhanced metabolism could be the key to creating unstoppable biological weapons hand in hand with perfectly working, reliable antidotes..."

“You’ve already checked the market for volcano-adjacent properties in the real estate listings, haven’t you?” Tony interrupted him. “Have you come up with a clever alliterative name for yourself yet?”

Natasha spat something out in Russian that made Clint snicker and Fury’s red-rimmed eye narrow with disapproval. “Agent Romanov…!”

“You know, you should have listened to Steve earlier,” Bruce told him. “You’d be able to yell a lot more effectively if you’d been drinking hot tea with honey for your throat like he told you to.”

“Oh god, Ben was right; you did catch it from Steve.” Tony looked over at Clint. “You don’t have it, do you? I don’t think I have it, I’m not feeling an overwhelming urge to fuss over everyone I see or speak to.”

“I got one of those urges earlier, but I fought it off,” Clint told him. “I think Phil might have it, though, he tried to push more tea on me earlier.”

“I won’t have it for long,” Phil replied. “The cure is for the people you’re fussing over to go back to being their regular, annoying selves.” He sucked in a deep breath, holding back the cough that wanted to come out. “I’m feeling better already.”

Fury had had enough. "Would one of you clowns mind telling me exactly what you _think_ is going on here?!"

Phil refrained from rolling his eyes and pointed at the red-faced doctor. "Someone – Dr. Eames, apparently – has been using SHIELD facilities to conduct his own viral experiments. No idea yet if it was his idea or someone else's, but," his lip curled, "it's pretty obvious he believes in what he's doing, so I'd say blackmail or coercion can probably be ruled out."

"And you know this how?"

"The Other Guy wasn't sick," Bruce told him. "Once I changed and then changed back yesterday, I wasn't sick either, so I could actually _think_." Eames opened his mouth, looking excited again; Natasha raised one eyebrow – and a small throwing knife – and gave him a meaningful look, and he subsided into an angry sulk. "And that's when Jarvis tipped me off that the virus wasn't behaving normally, and that Steve had been so suspicious of it he'd asked you if you were sure it was natural three separate times."

"He was being paranoid."

"He was right," Bruce contradicted. "I took samples, I ran them - and there is nothing natural about this virus, nothing. For starters, the DNA in it shows obvious signs of splicing. It was built with a kill-switch so it couldn't re-infect someone who'd already been infected, not even if the new one was a mutated strain - not normal. It was designed to go dormant within a very short time after infecting someone - not normal. And it was going easy on people who were already weakened somehow and couldn't fight it off, when by all rights those people should have gotten sicker - nice of him, but still not normal. This virus was specifically designed to go after the strongest individuals and leave the weaker ones alone, it may even have been created specifically with Steve in mind. It had already tried to infect him twelve times, and to do that it had mutated so much...well, comparing that last mutation to the flu would be like comparing a paintball gun to a surface-to-air missile, there just is no comparison. Without that kill-switch - or the correct antibodies, which would _only_ be present in Steve’s blood - it would have been the deadliest disease the world had ever seen."

"Or in other words, your 'doctor' here was trying to cook up the supervirus to end all superviruses - and he almost succeeded," Tony put in. "The lack of oversight this had to have happened under completely astounds me, by the way. "

“You’re one to talk about oversight,” Fury sneered. “I seem to remember the guy running your company…”

“That’s _enough_ ,” a hoarse voice snapped. Steve had appeared in the doorway that led to the kitchen, sleep-disheveled and being trailed by two wary Asgardian royals. His face was flushed, both from anger and from the remnants of his fever, and he was glaring at Fury. “Don’t you dare try to call him on that, it’s not the same situation and you know it – you’re just being a bully because you think no one will stand up to you.”

“People don’t stand up to me for a very good reason, Rogers,” Fury snarled. “And Stark can take it.”

Steve’s eyes narrowed, and his fists clenched; a small bead of red appeared at the crook of his elbow and started to slowly trickle downward, following the curve of the bunched muscles. “He doesn’t have to while I’m here.”

“Stop it,” Phil snapped – at Fury, not at Steve. “Stop with the pointless posturing, it’s not getting you anywhere. Right now, we need to contain this situation, starting with the person who set it in motion in the first place by releasing the virus.”

He pointed at Eames again, which turned out to be a mistake. Steve’s dark-circled eyes followed the pointing finger, and then he stalked into the room and right up to the person indicated, glaring down at him. He obviously recognized the man – and just as obviously didn’t like him. “You, Dr. Eames? _You’re_ the one who did all this? What kind of monster are you?”

Stupidly, Eames tried to launch into his spiel yet again, adopting an even more patronizing tone. “Nobody was hurt, I constructed the virus very carefully. You have to understand, Captain, your potential is being criminally wasted on this ‘Avengers’ nonsense, and the higher-ups agree with me on that – you aren’t a soldier anymore, and we as a modern country don’t need a national icon. But with what the serum has done to your metabolism, to your immune system, we could use you to solve so many problems for humanity – cure diseases, counter bioweapons, solve the mysteries of life itself! I was just…”

“Torturing the parents of sick kids all over the country, because they didn’t know your virus wouldn’t kill,” Steve finished for him, and then he lashed out and Eames went flying backwards in time with the sickeningly meaty sound of a fist hitting flesh. The doctor landed in a groaning heap on the carpet a few feet away, not even trying to get up. “Bastard.” Steve raised his hand, a puzzled expression crossing his face as he looked at his knuckles, which were now torn and starting to bleed, and then he tucked his other arm against his side, wincing as his ribs apparently reminded him they were broken. “Ow.”

There was a moment of frozen, wide-eyed silence, and then half of the Avengers in the room converged on their leader and forced him – carefully - onto the nearest couch. Fury watched, scowling. The Avengers were, for the most part, completely ignoring him and his armed agents now in favor of fussing over Steve Rogers, who had just told him off and then punched out a SHIELD doctor right in front of him. Fury opened his mouth to say something…and then abruptly took a step back, because he’d just realized that he was standing less than five feet from Bruce Banner, who was staring at the downed Dr. Eames with eyes that had turned gamma-green. To Fury’s utter surprise, though, nothing else happened. Bruce had stiffened and his fists were clenched, but he wasn’t getting any bigger and his skin was still pink. “No,” Bruce said in a low, firm voice, sending a chill up Fury’s spine when he realized who the man was talking to. “Hulk, Steve needs me, still. But I promise, once he doesn’t need me, we are going to drag this sorry excuse for a human being out into the middle of nowhere and you can chase him around and around and around until you’re sick of him or he can’t run any more. And I’m just gonna sit back and enjoy the show.”

And after a long few seconds, his eyes turned brown again. He staggered just slightly, and Tony Stark was right there to steady him – and Tony didn’t look frightened at all. Bruce turned away from Eames and went to Steve, plopping down beside the supersoldier on the couch and unceremoniously reaching under the loose t-shirt he was wearing to check his ribs. Natasha was already cleaning up Steve’s bloody knuckles while Clint held his arm still for her and put pressure on the oozing injection site in the crook of his elbow. “Feel better?” Bruce asked mildly, sounding amused and not at all as though he had almost turned into a giant green rage monster right there in the Avengers’ family room. “Were we really that annoying all week?”

Steve chuckled, wincing just a little. “Yes, and no. You guys were fine, just a little cranky. I really…” he hissed when Bruce pushed on a particularly sore spot, “…didn’t mind, really.” He sniffed, and frowned. “I don’t…did I get it, finally? I have the virus?”

“I gave you the virus,” Bruce corrected him. “The same version Tony and the others had, and that turned off the supercharged version that had been attacking you.” He finished checking the alignment of the broken ribs and withdrew his hand, patting the other man’s leg as he did. “I couldn’t think of any other way to derail it, and I’m sorry for that. You’re in for a miserable week.”

Steve sniffed again, and Clint obligingly handed him a tissue. “Thanks. And you don’t have to be sorry, sometimes the only workable solution is the one everyone’s gonna hate.”

“Yeah, about that,” Tony, who had circled around the back of the couch to hover, scuffed one foot on the carpet. “I’m sorry for comparing you to Fury yesterday, Steve. I was pissed, yeah, but that was an unbelievably shitty thing even for me to say. You’re nothing like him, and you never will be.”

Fury winced, but nobody was looking at him so nobody saw it. Steve tipped back his head to smile at Tony. “Hey, you didn’t feel good, and then I snuck out and left all of you alone, and I took Bruce with me while he was still sick. I knew you didn’t mean it, Tony, really – I even told Bruce that, remember?”

Tony got a very unusual expression on his face, and he reached out and ruffled Steve’s sleep-disordered blond hair. “Yeah, I remember.” Then he frowned, fingers moving more purposefully. “Bruce, he’s…”

“He’ll have a fever for about 48 hours,” Bruce reminded him patiently. “All of us did.”

“Oh, yeah.” Tony gave the remaining SHIELD doctor, who was edging closer, a baleful look, and the man scurried back to the relative safety of the two armed agents and Fury again. “We need rope or zip ties or something,” he announced to no one in particular. He was still stroking through Steve’s hair with his fingers. “Or handcuffs would be nice.”

“You are not handcuffing my agents,” Fury told him. “Now back off and let Dr. Perry…”

“Keep him over there if you don’t want him to join Dr. Eames on the carpet,” Clint rasped; the singing earlier had apparently been a bit much for his throat, and it was catching up with him. “You can’t vouch for him, you don’t know if he was in on it or not. And what about the other two, did you bring them or did Eames already have them when he came to talk to you?”

Fury glared at him. “These are my agents, Barton, and you’re out of line.”

“That means Eames brought them,” Tony told Clint, rolling his eyes. “Phil?”

“Back up against the wall and do not move,” Phil ordered the two agents and the doctor, and after a moment’s hesitation – and some threatening looks from the other Avengers – they obeyed him. “Jarvis, can you connect me to Agent Hill, please? Emergency channel.”

“Certainly, Agent Coulson.” There was a momentary pause. “Connected, sir.”

“Thank you, Jarvis. Hill?” Phil asked. “It’s Coulson. Sorry for the early-morning call, but we have a situation over at the tower.”

“Director Fury…”

“Oh, he’s here,” Phil interrupted her. “But he’s not what I need right now. What would you say if I told you we’d had someone from Medical go rogue, and confess to it, and that I have that person in custody right now – although he’s currently groaning on the carpet courtesy of Captain Rogers, who is not very happy with him?”

“I’d say I’m dispatching someone to your location, and I’ll be there myself in twenty minutes,” she told him, sounding a lot more alert now. “Rogue how?”

“Dr. Eames from Medical created the virus that’s been sweeping the city, now the country, and he released it as part of a convoluted scheme to create a supervirus – oh, and he was trying to use Captain Rogers to do it, because ‘we as a modern country don’t need a national icon,’ end quote,” Phil told her matter-of-factly. “He also mentioned ‘higher-ups’ agreeing with him. The only point in his favor right now is that he specifically created the virus so it wouldn’t kill anyone.” He held up a hand at Steve’s renewed scowl. “I know, Steve, I know – but it could have been a hell of a lot worse.”

“If he really did create the virus, it’s plenty bad enough now,” came from Hill. She sounded like she was, if not running, at least walking quickly. “Are you sure? The CDC said…”

“Find out where the CDC got their data,” Bruce put in. “I have a feeling they got it from SHIELD Medical, or at least got some of it verified by SHIELD Medical – they’ve had some horrible budget cuts this past year, and I know they ask for help sometimes when they run short.”

Tony whistled. “Damage control on that front is going to be a bitch. Agent Hill, call Pepper to help you with that part if you need to – she’s really, really good at damage control.”

“She’d have to be,” Hill replied, but with a little less snark than usual. “Anything else, Coulson?”

“Find out where in SHIELD the spider-bot remote transmission-interceptor devices came from, who authorized their use, who’s been monitoring them and for how long,” Phil told her. “Almost 400 of them have been deployed in this building alone, and more have been found in the Baxter Building. Dr. Eames knew about them and we know he was accessing the data from at least some of them – he got Director Fury to come over here this morning based on the feed from the bugs being terminated last night.” He paused, then added, “I think we might need Ms. Potts on damage control with the Fantastic Four more than with the CDC. Dr. Richards was not happy that we bugged his building, even though he does know that it wasn’t us _per se_.”

Hill swore softly. “Wonderful, that’s all we need.” Then she got back to business. “Anything else?” Her tone, however was saying, _Please, tell me that’s all_.

Phil heard it loud and clear. “That’s it so far, Hill,” he assured her. “We have the situation well in hand here, but since everyone is still trying to get over the virus – and since Captain Rogers is sick with it now as well – we just need someone to come collect everyone who doesn’t live here and take them someplace else. None of the Avengers are up to doing transport duty right now.”

“Understood. We’ll be there shortly. Hill out.”

Fury had lost patience with everyone ignoring him again. “Captain Rogers still needs to go to Medical – we need to know what happened to him, and how he’s reacting to the virus. And the rest of you…we obviously need to have a debriefing about this incident, among other things, and I think everyone can just come down to headquarters and get it taken care of now.” He sniffed. “Everyone but Captain Rogers looks fine to me.”

He didn’t get the reaction he wanted, or even the one he expected. The Avengers all just looked at each other, Clint put a hand over Steve’s mouth when he started to say something, and Phil actually rolled his eyes. It was the woman Fury didn’t recognize, however – he assumed she was Thor’s mother, Frigga, in spite of the non-Asgardian clothes she was wearing – who reacted. She walked over to him, looked him up and down, and then frowned and shook her head. “You are old enough to know better,” she finally said. “Sit down, and wait for your people to come for you. I will bring you something for your throat.”

Fury attempted to stand his ground. “Lady Frigga, I appreciate your concern, but you shouldn’t involve yourself in this situation. These people are my problem to deal with.”

Her eyes narrowed, and she folded her arms across her chest. “I have taken responsibility for the care of these heroes of Midgard, as their leader became unable to do so due to _your_ oversight,” she told him. “You will do as I say while you are within these walls, and when your own people come you will return with them to your headquarters.” One elegant eyebrow went up. “Now sit, and be silent, before I become angry.”

And Nick Fury, director of one of the most powerful organizations on Earth and a completely intimidating bastard in his own right…went to the nearest chair and sat down on it. Mainly, he told himself, because of the need for diplomacy in this situation and not because Thor, the freaking God of Thunder who was around a hundred times older than Fury, had gone wide-eyed like a scared little kid when his mother had started using that particular tone of voice.

It did feel good to sit down, though. And when Frigga brought him a steaming cup he obediently sipped the contents and tried not to think about how much better it was making his throat and his stomach feel. The Avengers, after a few sidelong looks, had gone back to ignoring him. He’d find a way to get back at them for putting him in this situation later. After Frigga was gone, of course.

Frigga, after seeing to it that man called Fury was suitably cowed and would cause no more trouble for the moment, had gone back to the couch and started sorting out the people around it. The Son of Coul said he had to stay until Agent Hill arrived, but he sent Clint and Natasha back to bed and they left without protest. The Man of Iron also said he had to stay because it was his tower, and Frigga allowed it because she saw that he feared leaving in case something else should happen. She knew without asking that her son would not leave, and she secured a promise from Bruce that after handing his findings over to Agent Hill he would seek his bed also rather than returning to his work. And she allowed Steve to stay where he was without comment, because the others had to stay as did she herself which left no one to keep watch over him were he to go to his room – and Frigga was not about to leave him unguarded.

Bruce had brought tea for Steve when she had brought it for Fury, a different kind and with more honey, and she watched her son and Tony press him to drink it with outward approval and inner amusement. Steve bore their rough fussing with good humor, which pleased her greatly. Fury was drinking his as though reluctant to let it be known he was enjoying it, which also amused her. The man Fury was much concerned with how he appeared to those who were beneath him, an attitude Frigga well understood but had little patience with in this situation. She decided to make sure the cook she placed in the tower was a strong warrior as well, and not easily intimidated - she was fairly certain Fury would be back to the tower eventually, although perhaps not any time soon.

 

Agent Hill arrived closer to thirty than twenty minutes later, with a larger – and better armed – cadre of black-uniformed agents as well as a tall, steely-eyed man in regular clothes who was carrying a battered-looking backpack. The tall man took in the arrangement of people around the room, Avengers clustered defensively on one side and SHIELD personnel with their backs against the wall nearest the elevator on the other; he raised a white-blond eyebrow at the man lying on the floor on the SHIELD side. “I take it this is the man Captain Rogers didn’t like?” he asked no one in particular. “The one who claimed to have created the virus?”

"That's Dr. Eames," Phil supplied. "He's been working for SHIELD Medical for about eight years now, maybe nine - and yes, he admitted to making and spreading the virus. Before Captain Rogers hit him," he added as an afterthought.

“Do I need to do anything for him?”

“We let his henchman look at him before you got here, his nose is broken,” Tony supplied with a shrug. “Steve wasn’t trying to kill him.”

“I’m pretty sure Captain Rogers was trying not to kill him, because he isn’t dead,” the man replied. He frowned down at Eames and nudged the man with his shoe, got a groan in response and then shrugged. "I'm Dr. Connor," he introduced himself. "I'm a medical investigator and epidemiologist with the National Institute of Health, my team and I should have been called back the minute this virus started running rampant through SHIELD and the local metahuman community." Everybody pretended not to see Fury flinch. Connor looked around again. “Is anyone else injured besides Dr. Eames?”

“Captain Rogers is,” Dr. Perry huffed. “They wouldn’t let us examine him.”

“He got some injuries during yesterday’s fight,” Bruce clarified from where he had moved to sit on the back of the couch. “A few broken ribs and some cuts, nothing major.”

Connor frowned. He took a step in that direction…and then stopped when the Avengers all visibly tensed. He slowly put down his bag and held up empty hands. “It’s okay, I won’t come any closer unless you say I can. But…yesterday? Shouldn’t such minor injuries have healed by now?”

Bruce nodded. “They should have, but they aren’t – and they probably won’t for a couple more days,” he said. “He needs to stay here, though, where he’s safe. We have it under control at the moment, but fighting off the escalating mutations of the virus tied up his system to the point that he wasn’t even healing as much as a normal person would. Even a small injury, like a bruise or a cut, could be dangerous to him right now.”

“Which is why Captain Rogers belongs in Medical,” came from Fury, his frustration after half an hour of watching the Avengers continue to ignore him while they played a dice game on the coffee table boiling over. He stood up. “Because as Dr. Eames pointed out before he was assaulted, Doctor Banner, you aren’t the right kind of doctor to make decisions about your teammates’ health.”

“I am,” Connor countered, “And he’s right – and I wouldn’t take a stray dog into SHIELD Medical right now, I’d be afraid somebody would do something ‘interesting’ to it in the name of science.” He turned and raised an eyebrow at Fury. “Nick, did you just honestly suggest that we should take the advice of a man who infected the whole country with a cooked-up virus because he thinks Captain America should be his own personal lab rat? Because if you did, you’re sicker than I was led to believe.”

“Watch it, Connor,” Fury snapped. And then he coughed, which made him glare as though he was daring someone to say something about it.

Connor just rolled his eyes. "I’m putting you on sick leave for three days, Nick, effective immediately. And if Maria tells me you've so much as logged in to check your email, it's going to be a week instead."

Fury bristled. "I need to be..."

"At home, not at headquarters terrorizing your staff or here in this building trying to terrorize the Avengers," Connor told him. "My team is already on site at SHIELD headquarters, we'll be cleaning out Medical and any part of your R&D department they might have been in collusion with. And until that’s done I'm in charge of Medical, and as the guy in charge of Medical I'm telling you to go home and rest." He frowned, though, looking at Fury intently enough to actually make the man shift restlessly. “Maria,” he called back over his shoulder. “I need someone to take Director Fury home, and then I’m going to send one of my people over to his house to get some blood samples. This isn’t normal behavior for him even on a bad day, I’m starting to suspect our conspirators may have been dosing him with something to make him easier to manipulate.”

Fury snorted, fighting back the cough this time. “I haven’t taken anything but cold medicine.” Then he frowned, remembering something. “That I got from Medical.”

“Lucky for you they needed you alive,” Connor pointed out. He pulled out his cell phone and speed-dialed someone. “Powell, check their stock of cold medicine, find out how many people they’ve been giving it to,” he ordered the person on the other end without preamble. “Yes, I have reason to suspect it’s not just cold medicine, and if I’m right we need to know what’s in it – they’ve been dosing Director Fury with it and who knows how many other people, and the director is definitely not acting like himself.” He snorted and shook his head at something the other man said. “Yes, but he’s not usually that bad, and he’s a long way from reasonable right now. Which is why I want you personally to go over to the director’s house in about half an hour to get blood samples from him, we need to make sure doctored cold medicine is the only thing they’ve been giving him. I should be back on-site by the time you get back. Yes…no, no it isn’t. Luckily for everyone he was trying not to kill anyone – this time, anyway. We’ll make sure there isn’t a next time. Call me if you run into any problems.” He disconnected, shaking his head, and returned his attention to Fury. “You’re going home, Nick. You’re doing more harm than good here, and Dr. Powell just confirmed you’ve been doing worse than that at headquarters. Just let one of Maria’s people take you home so you can sleep off whatever they’ve been giving you, and Dr. Powell will be by in a little while to take some blood samples. I’ll come by once we have everything under control to brief you on the situation, all right?”

“I’ve got the Tower, sir,” Phil chipped in when Fury looked like he wanted to object again. “Hill has HQ. We’re fine to cover things until Dr. Connor releases you back to duty.”

Fury gave him a dirty look. “I think the Tower has you, Agent Coulson, not the other way around. We may need to have a discussion about that later.”

Someone on the other side of the room _growled_ , and if Thor and Tony hadn’t been halfway expecting it to happen and reacted just that quickly, Steve would have been off the couch and quite possibly at Fury’s throat. The supersoldier strained against their hold for a moment and then subsided and curled back into the couch cushions with an almost sub-vocal whimper, his arm wrapping around his ribs again. He was still glaring at Fury, though. “You just don’t stop, do you?” he ground out. “You already lost any respect we might have had for you the last time you played games with Phil; you start it up again, all bets are off.”

“Thank you, Steve,” Phil said placidly while Fury was still openmouthed with shock. A small, amused smile made an appearance. “I think somebody needs to go back to bed.”

“Not until all is secured and we are certain there will be no attack,” Frigga insisted. “Until that time, he stays where he is, where we can guard him.”

Fury’s mouth, which had almost recovered, dropped open again. Hill’s did for a moment, but she recovered quicker. “We don’t have a strike force mobilized, ma’am,” she told Frigga politely. “I checked before I came over here, I didn’t want to walk into something…um, bigger than a small group could handle.” She raised an eyebrow at Fury. “Sir?”

“No, there is no strike team,” Fury muttered unhappily, wondering if Connor and Stark were both right and he really wasn’t thinking clearly – his only plan had been to come in, yell at the Avengers, and then take Rogers back to headquarters. When had yelling at the Avengers ever worked? He usually only did it for stress relief – his, not theirs. Still… “I didn’t think we’d need it, I was sure they cared enough about their team leader to listen to reason.”

This time Thor, Tony _and_ Bruce kept Steve from leaping off the couch. “Hill?” Tony said plaintively. “Come on, please, get him out of here. As entertaining as this would be to me at any other time, Steve’s gonna hurt himself if it keeps up.”

“And he’s fragile enough already, we don’t need to add to it,” Bruce pointed out. “You might want to take Dr. Eames at the same time, for the same reason.” He raised an eyebrow at Eames, who had been helped to his feet by Dr. Perry. There was a lot of blood drying on the doctor’s face around the area of his very obviously broken nose, and his eyes were already swollen and starting to turn black. “I’ll come find him later, a…friend of mine wants to see him.”

“I’ll take that into consideration,” Hill told him with a nod, forcing herself not to shudder. She gestured to three of the agents she’d brought with her. “Take Dr. Eames, Dr. Perry, and the agents who came with them back to headquarters and put them in separate, monitored cells. And drop Director Fury off at his house on the way.” She thought a moment, then waved over another agent. “Four of you, just in case – I don’t want any incidents, or a hostage situation.”

“I think we know someone who can help make sure nothing like that happens,” Tony said. “Jarvis, get me Reed Richards again, please.”

“I already had a line open to the Baxter Building, by request of Agent Barton,” Jarvis told him, and then there was a click and a hiss of static as the one-way channel became two-way. “Dr. Richards.”

“Johnny will meet your people in front of the Tower, Agent Hill,” Reed’s hoarse voice said. “He’s already on his way. And if it helps, I can personally vouch for Dr. Connor; I have met him before, and he has a very good reputation in his field.”

“Thanks Reed,” Tony told him, and actually meant it. “If Johnny runs into trouble, call us – Thor and I are probably good enough to come out now if we’re needed.”

“You need to stay in the Tower,” came Ben’s rumbling voice. “Just in case there really is a strike force hangin’ around out there somewhere. And Steve,” his voice softened, “stop lettin’ Fury push your buttons, buddy, he’s not worth hurtin’ yourself over.”

Steve huffed out a breath, only wincing a little. “I’ll try,” he said, sounding a little bit ashamed of himself. “It’s just…he’s being a _bully_.”

“He’s always a bully,” Ben reminded him gently. “Relax and let the rest of your team handle it, they know not to take his crap to heart.”

“Yeah, they do, ” Steve agreed, although the expression on his face said he wasn’t entirely sure of it. “You’re right, I’ll try to keep it in check for the time being. It’s just…really hard right now.”

“That’s because you’re sick, and you have a fever,” Bruce told him, even more gently than Ben had. “Not a place you’ve been for a few years – and not in this body, either.”

“Yeah, that’s enough to make anyone cranky.” Tony had started stroking his fingers through Steve’s hair again, and he smiled when the younger man relaxed a little bit more. “There you go, we’ve got it. It’s time for the rest of us to fight off the bullies.”

Fury was staring again, but he let Connor herd him toward the elevator without saying anything, although he did recover himself enough to glare at Doctor Eames – who was glaring at the Avengers – as they got in; Eames very quickly stopped glaring at anyone and backed as far away from Fury as he could.

Hill and Coulson were both visibly relieved once the elevator’s doors closed. Hill raised an eyebrow. “Now what?”

Phil sighed, and choked back a cough. “Your guess is as good as mine. Dr. Connor?”

Connor nodded. “I’d like a copy of the results from the tests Dr. Banner ran, if that’s possible.”

Bruce picked up a folder from the coffee table, shaking off stray dice, and handed it to him, shrugging at his surprised look. “I was going to give it to Agent Hill, I knew someone would want to see it. Anything else?”

Connor took a deep breath. “I’d like to have a look at Captain Rogers before I go.”

Bruce hesitated, then nodded and went back to his spot behind the couch. Connor scooped up his bag and followed, very aware that the eyes of everyone left in the room were on him. But he smiled down at Steve. “Captain, may I?”

Steve sighed. “Sure. If Reed says you’re a good guy, I believe him.” Connor sat down and did approximately the same thing Bruce had done earlier, although he pushed up one side of the t-shirt so that he could see as well as feel the broken ribs. He frowned at the deep black bruising but pulled the shirt back down and then fished in his bag and pulled out a stethoscope and a digital thermometer. “How high did his temperature get before you gave him the virus?” he asked Bruce once he had put the thermometer in Steve’s mouth. “Was it spiking?”

“It had been, yes. Jarvis was tracking it for me, it was fluctuating between 106 and 109 when the introduced virus kicked in. The one time he woke up last night, he was very…disoriented.”

Steve immediately looked up at Bruce, alarmed. He took the thermometer out. “What did I…”

“You didn’t do anything, you just didn’t know where you were,” Bruce assured him. “You didn’t even try to get out of bed.”

“I didn’t…” Steve swallowed, “hurt anyone?”

“Of course you did not,” Frigga said. “I was there, you were merely confused. She frowned when he still looked worried. “You would not question my word, would you?”

“No, ma’am,” was the immediate response. “Of course I wouldn’t.”

“Good answer, my friend,” Thor rumbled, and pushed the hand holding the thermometer up so the thermometer went back where it belonged. He nodded at Connor. “Doctor, continue.”

Connor chuckled and took the thermometer back out, resetting it before putting it back in Steve’s mouth. “This time leave it in,” he ordered with a smile. Twenty seconds later it beeped and he took it out and looked at it. “Okay, 103 is still high, but that seems to be in line with the first 48 hours of this virus.” He raised an eyebrow at Bruce. “Have you given him anything?”

Bruce shook his head. “I was waiting until I was certain the virus I gave him had taken hold and completely knocked out the mutated version – normally over-the-counter drugs don’t work on him at all, but in this case they might have covered up something important.”

“Good thinking.” Connor listened to Steve’s lungs, then put the stethoscope away. “No aspirin, because of the clotting issue,” he said, gesturing at the fresh gauze bandage in the crook of Steve’s elbow with the little red-brown dot on top of it. “And I’m saying no to acetaminophen too – that’s Tylenol,” he clarified for everyone else, just in case. “Use ibuprofen, you can double the standard dose for the next 24 hours if you need to, and I’ll make a house call tomorrow to see how everything’s going.” He took a card out of his wallet and handed it to Bruce. “If anything starts bleeding again or if those ribs shift out of alignment, that’s my cell phone, call me immediately.”

Tony plucked the card out of Bruce’s hand and held it up. “Jarvis.”

“Recorded, sir,” the AI said, and Tony handed the card back to Bruce, who did not quite roll his eyes as he tucked it into his shirt pocket. “Dr. Connor, is there any other information regarding the captain’s condition which you wish to be kept aware of?”

Connor forced back his surprise. “If his temperature goes up past 104, text me,” he said. “Or if any symptoms show up that aren’t typical for this virus, based on the symptoms the other Avengers had. And you,” he turned his attention back to Steve. “Complain, I mean it. This stoic bullshit is not going to cut it – anyone else, I pushed on those ribs like that and they would have roared like a lion and shoved me onto the floor or curled up and cried like a baby.” He saw the look that got slanted sideways at Tony and Bruce. “No, Captain – _Steve_ , just no.” He forced those worried blue eyes to look at him. “Steve, it’s not a bad thing for your teammates to worry about you, and you’re not letting them down or disappointing them by being hurt. The five of you – or six of you, since I saw footage from that last one, Phil; do you need a superhero suit of your own? – do a dangerous job, a deadly job. Pretending it doesn’t affect you as much as it does hurts the team, Steve.” He put a hand on one broad shoulder and shook it, just a little. “Your team is your family, and don’t you forget it.”

Steve’s blue eyes widened with surprise and what may have been a touch of recognition, but then he shook his head, looking just the slightest bit ashamed of himself. “The Commandos used to get on me about that too. I’ll try to do better – old habits are hard to break.”

“That’s because you didn’t break them when they were young habits,” Connor told him. That made Steve chuckle, and the doctor was quick to reach out to help brace his ribs when the chuckle triggered a shallow cough that made Steve curl up, his eyes watering with pain. Connor cautiously withdrew his hand once he was sure the coughing was over and returned his attention to Bruce. “Keep an eye on that, do whatever you need to do so his first real coughing fit doesn’t end in a punctured lung – because that won’t fix itself and no one should try to fix it here, whether he’s healing again or not. Punctured lung equals a trip to Medical, does everyone understand?” He got a round of nods. “Barton, Romanov?” he called out.

There was a thud and a cough, and Clint came out of the alcove beside the elevator, semi-politely pushing his way past SHIELD agents, at the same time Natasha came out of the kitchen. They both nodded. Bruce was still looking at Connor. “Anything else?”

“Nope, I’m pretty sure you have it.” The other man frowned, though. “I’ll put some thought into getting your team a doctor of its own, someone you can trust.”

“Someone who doesn’t work for SHEILD?” Tony quipped, and then made a face. “Sorry, Phil.”

Phil shrugged. “Actually, I was thinking the same thing.” He frowned back at Connor, and then his expression cleared. “Wait, are you thinking of Dr. McCabe?”

“I am, but I need to talk to him before anyone says anything – he knows he needs to be reassigned, but it still needs to come from me. And I think he might fit pretty well here.” He correctly interpreted the looks he was getting. “Dr. McCabe is on my team, he’s a very good doctor, an excellent researcher, and he’s good at thinking outside the box.”

“Then why are you getting rid of him?”

Leave it to Stark to get right to the point. “He was infected with something we were investigating on a mission in South America about a year ago. We got the antivirus to him in time to save his life, but I think he’s bounced back from it as much as he’s ever going to.”

“So you’re saying he can’t do field work anymore.”

That was Clint. Connor nodded. “No, he can’t – or at least, he shouldn’t be. He’d be all right if it was just once in a while, but field work is all my team does. And he’d go crazy from boredom in private practice or a hospital; before he got infected, I was looking at him to take my spot someday.” He turned back to Tony. “He will nag if you drink more than six cups of coffee a day, because he does it to me. He’ll insist on monitoring that,” he flicked a finger at the glowing circle under Tony’s t-shirt, “for signs of infection or rejection. He’ll be all over the rest of you about injuries, including muscle strain – and that means you too, Reed, I know you’re still listening.”

A snort came from the hidden speakers overhead. “I do not get…”

“You do, Ben tattled on you.”

“He does,” Ben rumbled. “He just don’t like to admit it – I need to have the same talk with him again that you just had with Steve. So this guy would be our doc too?”

“That’s actually a really good idea.” Surprisingly, that came from Tony, who had slipped into thinking mode. “Right now we’re all dependent on ourselves – no offense, Bruce – or SHIELD Medical, which I am never setting foot in again. And I built an infirmary here in the tower, so we do have a place to put our own doctor.” His intense gaze snapped back to Connor. “He’s a researcher too, so he’s good in the lab?” The doctor nodded. “Yeah, of course – you wanted him to take over for you. What _can’t_ he do?”

Connor shrugged. “Cook. Back down from a bully – kind of like this one here.” He patted a blushing Steve’s leg again. “Keep his mouth shut when he’s right and you’re wrong. Oh, and he doesn’t do politics very well; you put him in a room with an officious windbag and he’s going to cause an incident.”

“Can he fight?” Natasha wanted to know.

“He can, well enough for our kind of field work. But let Steve work with him on that,” he warned when she started to say something else. “He’s like Falsworth, Steve.”

Steve nodded at once. “Oh, okay. I can work with that.” He shook his head at Natasha. “You couldn’t train him, he wouldn’t fight you and you’d break him if you tried to force it. He’s a gentleman brawler, like Tony is.”

“Hey!”

Steve tipped back his head, raising one eyebrow. “You are. You don’t pick physical fights, but you don’t back down from them either and you don’t brawl for fun or when you’re drunk. And you don’t hit women unless they don’t give you a choice.” He grinned, but it was affectionate. “You’re a gentleman, Tony, deal with it.”

Tony’s response was to push Steve’s head back up - gently. “Stop stretching like that, I can tell it hurts.” But he ruffled the younger man’s hair. “So he can fight if he has to, I’m guessing he can use a gun, too?” Connor nodded. “But he can’t cook.”

“I am having a cook sent to you from Asgard,” Frigga interrupted. “One who can fight as well, and who will not be easily intimidated by those who come to cause trouble.”

“Oh joy, we’re getting a cook trained to stand up to my boss,” Phil murmured, covering his eyes with his hand. “Perfect.”

Clint patted him on the shoulder. “Sounds good,” he told Frigga. “It’s nice of you to think of that, thanks.”

She smiled at him and pinched his cheek. “You are most welcome, Archer.” One eyebrow went up. “But I thought the Son of Coul dismissed you to your bed earlier?”

Clint blushed. “I…um… needed the bathroom?” She made a show of peering back at the alcove he’d come out of. “Oh, uh, no, I wasn’t…I needed a drink, that was it. That’s a shortcut from my room to the kitchen.” She shook her head, not buying it. Clint resorted to whining. “Phil, a little help please?”

Phil was trying not to laugh, because he knew that would make him cough. “I had he and Natasha keeping watch on the situation from outside the room just in case, ma’am,” he told Frigga, even though he was relatively sure she already knew that. “We might have needed them.”

“You might have,” she conceded. “But you do not need them now, nor do you yourself still need to be here.” She pointed. “To your beds, all of you.”

“She’s right, the rest of you need to sleep now in case something else happens later and you need to go out.” Connor gave Steve a stern look. “No helping, no matter what it is, do you understand? Unless someone breaks into your room and attacks you personally and there’s no one else around to help, no fighting of any kind for at least a week.”

Steve sighed. “Yeah, you’re right – if I try to fight like this, I’d be a liability. I’d yell at the rest of them if they tried to do that.”

“And they would deserve to be chastised, as would you,” Frigga agreed. “But now it is time for you to return to your bed.” Steve sighed again but let Connor and Thor help him up off the couch. She raised an eyebrow at Phil and Clint; Natasha had already disappeared. “You may help me see him settled as well, but then you will return to your beds and stay there.”

“I’ve got it, Coulson,” Hill called over to her fellow agent when he hesitated, trying not to snicker and failing; he gave her a dirty look and she smirked. “We’ll take Dr. Connor back to headquarters and get busy on the cleanup over there, and I’ll let you know if we find any other evil mad scientist plans in the works. This one was pretty big, though, so hopefully anything else Dr. Eames had going is still in the planning stages.”

“Be careful anyway,” Phil warned her. “Remember, he said higher-ups agreed with him, and we both know what that means. I’d really like to know who got in touch with who to get that ball rolling, and how long it’s been going on.”

“Me too.” Hill looked even less happy – mainly, Phil thought, because she was usually the bridge between Fury and those same ‘higher-ups’ and they’d left her entirely out of the loop this time. Or at least, he hoped they had; unlike the rest of them, Hill hadn’t gotten the virus. She grinned at him again and he put that thought aside for later consideration. “Go to bed, Coulson.”

He stuck out his tongue at her and then went to help Frigga supervise Clint and Thor getting Steve back to his room. The Fantastic Four disconnected with a rather sarcastic ‘nighty-night, guys’ from Ben and a promise to let everyone know if anything else happened from Reed, after which Tony trailed off in the general direction of the labs and was forcibly dragged back towards his room by Phil. Bruce started to follow Phil and Tony, then stopped. He asked Connor a question in a low voice, and the doctor nodded and followed him into the kitchen, gesturing for Hill and her remaining agents to stay where they were.

Connor was back out five minutes later, alone and frowning, but he shook his head when Hill asked if there was a problem. “He’s concerned –legitimately concerned – about the captain’s safety if word of this gets out, and about his place on the team if it gets out and bad guys start attacking him specifically with this sort of thing in mind,” the doctor told her. “I told him I’d do what I could to make sure that didn’t happen.”

Hill raised an eyebrow. “And he couldn’t express that legitimate concern in front of me because…”

“He doesn’t trust you.” It was a simple statement, not an accusation. “He knows you don’t like the idea of the Avengers, he knows you’ve argued about it with Fury before, and he wasn’t about to hand you the leverage you’d need to get their team leader taken away.” He shook his head, motioning toward the elevator. “We should definitely go before Stark’s AI decides we’ve overstayed our welcome. ”

“I was going to leave someone…”

“You’d be retrieving them in a sack by tonight,” Connor cut her off. “Forget the rest of the Avengers, they’d probably just tie your guard up and leave him in a corner until you came back. But if _Captain Rogers_ came wandering out here and found someone in black armor lurking in his living room? Right now he’d probably think they were HYDRA and take them out.” She didn’t look convinced, and he snorted. “Phil made the rest of them promise not to use extreme force unless someone attacked the Tower and got as far as the captain’s room…but the captain wasn’t awake then, and he’s confused and edgy right now. So unless you’re trying to set him up for murder so you can have something hold over his head later, we should probably all leave together.”

Hill looked like she wanted to argue with him, but then her jaw set and she nodded jerkily – and she glared at the black-clad agent who hung back when she gestured everyone into the now-open elevator. “He’s right,” she said. “I didn’t know the virus would make Captain Rogers so…aggressive, but since it did, having someone in uniform stay here is a bad idea.” She didn’t quite smirk. “I’m sure you remember what happened to the agents on guard the _first_ time he woke up disoriented, right?”

Defeated but still frowning, the last guard got into the elevator, followed by Connor and Hill. The doors closed, and a moment later Bruce stepped out of the kitchen with Natasha and walked around the area the SHIELD agents had been in. “Jarvis?” Natasha asked.

“No transmitting devices of any kind were left by SHIELD,” Jarvis told her. “I will locate the personnel file on the guard who attempted to stay behind and make it available at your convenience. And I will summon housekeeping to remove the bloodstains from the carpet as soon as possible.”

“As long as Frigga or someone is out here while they’re here, that’s fine,” Bruce agreed. “It won’t be me, though, I’m going to bed – we’re all going to bed, it was a long night. So that leaves you on watch, Jarvis.”

“Keep the lab sealed,” Natasha added. “Lock down the computers in that area so they have no connection with the outside. And lock the residential section back down immediately, and then again once the cleaning crew has departed.” She stifled a cough with her fist. “Also, monitor the airspace around the tower, and awaken Stark and Coulson to do a threat assessment if any aircraft comes too close or begins to circle the building, no matter who it belongs to.”

“Of course, Agent Romanov.” A pause, then, “You still sound quite hoarse. Before you retire, would you like some tea with honey for your throat?”

Natasha just stared at the ceiling, openmouthed, and Bruce laughed all the way back to his room.


End file.
